


Dancer in the Dark

by ElectricZ



Series: For Tomorrow [5]
Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Character Study, Drama, Friendship, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-02
Updated: 2019-05-06
Packaged: 2019-06-01 03:30:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 34,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15134132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElectricZ/pseuds/ElectricZ
Summary: After losing Keiji, Kasumi Goto found a renewed sense of purpose helping Commander Shepard and his squad combat the collectors. During her short time aboard the Normandy, she'd never imagined anything could come between these people, until the day a geth platform showed up in their airlock freshly delivered from a dead reaper. Not everyone on board is happy to see it, and even unhappier when Shepard decides to let it stay on board. With the fate of the crew, and all of civilization, hanging in the balance, Kasumi takes action to mend the rift - regardless if anyone actually sees or knows about it. Rated T for language.





	1. Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?

**Author's Note:**

> Note - the dialogue in the briefing room is cribbed directly from the game. I don't usually include game cutscenes but it's important to the plot. As usual, I hope you enjoy and thanks for reading!

It was a fact of life that people often couldn't see what was right in front of them. _And without that,_ Kasumi Goto thought, _you'd be out of a job._

Sometimes not being seen was a matter of evading eyes, organic and electronic. Other times, it was simply a matter of not being noticed. A thief by profession, Kasumi was adept at both. But a third case caused the most trouble, when something was in plain sight but no one could see the danger it represented.

Something like the geth lying motionless on the deck in front of her.

Kasumi, Mordin Solus and Commander Shepard, still in their exposure suits, leaned against the aft wall of _Normandy's_ main airlock as Joker piloted the ship away from the derelict reaper in its decaying orbit. At their feet lay a geth platform, the first ever recovered intact by organics anywhere in the galaxy since the uprising against their quarian masters on Rannoch.

The ship stabilized, and the squad staggered to their feet. "Well that was fun," Kasumi said as airlock's inner hatch split open. "Especially the leap at the end. Let's do that again!"

Miranda stepped through the hatch with Jacob and Garrus right behind. "Is everyone alright-" Miranda's voice trailed off as her mind mind registered the unexpected guest.

On reflex, Jacob raised a rifle toward the immobile geth platform. He usually arrived after a mission to collect the team's equipment and help them strip out of their gear, but this time brought a weapon in case something else tried to jump the gap with the squad. No one had mentioned anything about a geth making an appearance.

Shepard held up a hand. "Hold fire! It's in a sleep state."

The soldier lowered his weapon, but kept a tight grip on it as Miranda knelt next to the inert machine, her omnitool glowing around her wrist. She looked up at Shepard with wide eyes. "It's operational?"

Kasumi looked to Shepard. There hadn't been time to tell anybody about their newest passenger, and it wasn't the kind of surprise people liked. Shepard beckoned them in and sealed the hatch.

Jacob knelt next to Miranda. He still clutched his rifle, but there was no denying the elation in his voice. "Holy shit. This is incredible!"

"It's badly damaged," Garrus said, noting the huge hole in the geth's chest as well as the dark stains from rotted flesh and decayed blood. Having seen the residue many times on his own armor before, he recognized its source. "Interesting. I would have thought the husks would have been programmed to ignore geth. Or is this splatter from indiscriminate weapon fire I see?"

"Hardly," Kasumi said. "Though it did get a little... _drippy_ over there at times. But this wasn't our doing."

"We didn't do any of it," Shepard said, also staring at the hole in the geth's armor. "Reaper constructs took it down."

Garrus scowled. "Excuse me?"

"Who cares?" Jacob said, rising to his feet, smiling from ear to ear. "You bagged a live one, Shepard! Now we can finally see what makes these things tick. Tali's gonna have a field day. She know yet? You call her up here?"

Miranda held up a hand. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. We're not going to hand it over to anyone just yet."

"You serious? Tali's the top expert on geth in the entire galaxy. Not to mention what it'll mean for the Migrant Fleet-" Jacob stopped when Miranda looked back to the geth. "What?"

Kasumi winced under her cowl. She didn't know all the details, but when she'd first come aboard, the ship's quarian and the two top Cerberus officers barely tolerated each other at best, and wanted to strangle each other at worst. Then while she and Shepard had been away, there'd been some kind of Come-to-Jesus meeting with the squad, after which Tali and Jacob started being nice to each other. Kasumi was thrilled to see any antagonistic relationship turn positive, and being friends with both Tali and Jacob made it all the more sweet. The only problem was that Jacob had always been Miranda's guy... and Miranda and Tali were still nowhere close to being friends. She watched to see how the Senior Cerberus Operative would respond.

"Nothing, it's just not yours to give away," Miranda said. She looked up at Shepard. "We need to notify the Illusive Man about this immediately. Before we make any decisions."

The assembled squad stared at Shepard, waiting for an answer. He sighed and took off his helmet. "As soon as we know what we've got. In the meantime, word of this isn't to get out. Not to the crew, to Cerberus, anybody. Understood?" Everyone voiced varied utterances of acknowledgement and Shepard spoke into his comm. "Joker, what's our status?"

_"In the clear, Commander. Mnemosyne's firmly in the rear view. No damage to the ship."_

"Good. Make for the relay." Shepard switched to a secure channel. "EDI? Where's the best place to keep a geth on ice, to keep it isolated in case it wakes up?"

"In the AI core, Shepard," EDI said.

Shepard blinked at the unexpected answer. "In the _where?"_

"AI Core," Miranda said, standing. "The entire suite is hardened against AI attack. Internally or externally, with completely shielded and segmented systems. EDI's right, it's the safest place."

 _To keep the ship's own resident AI from going haywire,_ Kasumi thought to herself. She liked EDI a lot, and not just because she was a fascinating piece of technology. Maybe it was the thief in her, but she found the confinement of any sentient being unsettling, virtual or otherwise.

"All right then," Shepard said. "Garrus, assemble a detail to haul this thing down to the AI core. Put Grunt and Zaeed on it, then post them at the door. No one in or out. And don't just drag it through the ship, either. Get something to cover it up. If anyone asks, it's part of the reaper IFF."

Garrus fired up his omnitool. "On it."

"Mordin? Take the actual IFF to the lab and get to work on it."

"Right away," Mordin said, omnitool already out and performing calculations.

"Jacob, Miranda, I want to see you in the briefing room as soon as we stow our gear."

"Aye sir," both of them said.

"And Kasumi? Uh..."

Kasumi grinned. As the newest member of the squad and no official post, her responsibility for anything usually ended the second she stepped aboard ship. She always pitched in where she could, of course, but unless someone wanted to play a joke on a shipmate, her talents were pretty useless. "How about moral support? Good work everybody!" That got a half-hearted round of smiles and applause and she curtsied.

Only Shepard didn't seem to find it funny. "I don't see anybody moving."

"Shepard," Garrus held up a hand. "Before we go, what should we tell Tali-"

"Don't tell Tali anything," Shepard said sternly. "Do not. Tell. Anyone. That's an order. Are we clear? Let's move it out."

Mordin stepped through the inner hatch, already lost in his own little world of formulas and calculations as he carried the reaper IFF off to his lab. Shepard left right behind him without saying another word. Miranda, Jacob and Garrus all stayed behind and looked at one another like they were trying to figure out who passed gas.

Kasumi edged around the inert geth and the other members of the squad before anyone started asking questions. The Commander had it easy. He could deflect the crew's curiosity simply by barking orders. All Kasumi could do was play dumb, and she hated doing that. But unlike the rest of the crew, she'd actually been on the reaper when they found the geth, and knew exactly why Shepard wasn't calling for their resident expert. How _would_ the crew react if Shepard explained it without preparing them?

As she exited the airlock, it was already starting. She heard Garrus's voice behind her, filled with confusion and concern. "What the hell do we have here?"

* * *

Shepard paced back and forth at the head of the briefing room table staring at the shimmering hologram of the deactivated geth platform lying on its back. Miranda was talking, but whether or not Shepard was paying attention to anything was anyone's guess. He couldn't take his eyes from the image before him.

"We need better equipment to fight the reapers," Miranda said. "An intact geth would be invaluable to Cerberus' cyberweapons division."

Jacob leaned forward with his hands on the table as if he could push the hologram away from him. "We'll have to disagree on that, ma'am. I saw enough of these things on Eden Prime. Space it."

Miranda decided to try a different tack. It was a long shot, but as the saying went, money talked, and also had the benefit of solving the problem of having the geth on the ship. "Cerberus has a long-standing cash bounty on an intact geth. I assure you the reward is significant."

If Shepard had been listening to either of them, he didn't show it. He folded his arms in front of him. "I want to know why it has a piece of N7 armor strapped to its chest."

"Battle trophy, maybe?" Jacob suggested. "Would a machine care about that?"

"No," Miranda said. "Trophies imply emotions that AIs don't have. I doubt if it's more than a convenient field repair."

"I've killed hundreds of these things," Shepard said, "but I've never had a chance to talk to one. This one tried to communicate with us. Hell, it probably saved our lives. Why?"

Miranda shook her head. "Reactivating the geth is a risk. If you do so, it should be for humanity's best interests and not your curiosity."

Jacob crossed his arms. "I still think our 'best interests' involve an airlock."

Shepard kept staring at the geth. "I'm not deciding one way or the other until I know what we've got here. I want to start it up. Interrogate it."

In a rare display of emotion, Miranda almost sounded worried. "If we activate it, there's no guarantee we can deactivate it again."

Jacob scowled. "Bullets can."

"That's not what I-"

Shepard cut them both off as he walked from the room. "Thank you, both of you, for your recommendations. I've made my decision. We're turning it back on."

Jacob snapped to attention and saluted as Shepard left. Miranda lingered long enough to shake her head at him before following Shepard into the corridor. Jacob stayed behind and activated his omnitool, speaking to what he assumed was an empty room. "Tali's gonna freak when she hears about this." Then he, too followed the Commander out the door.

Throughout the entire exchange, no one paid attention to the living shadow watching and listening from the corner of the room. To their eyes and ears, and the electronic sensors throughout the ship, she didn't exist.

* * *

Kasumi's stomach swirled as she rode the elevator down to the crew deck. It was the same sensation she'd get on a job if she spotted an extra layer of security after already defeating two. Most people were smart or paranoid enough to use redundant systems, but on occasion she'd run into someone clever with a third safeguard. The problem was that someone who went that far didn't always stop at three. One time on Omega, she and Keiji tried to boost a jewel dealer who had at least six independent, overlapping security systems on his vault, each more insidious than the last. They looked, but couldn't find a seventh triggering device, and decided to walk away. To this day Kasumi knew number seven was there, and if they'd proceeded they would have been caught.

Keiji was gone now, and had been for some time. Commander Shepard helped her kill the man responsible, and for the first time since Keiji's death, Kasumi found people worth getting to know. Even with deep personality conflicts, this bunch had each others' backs. Tali and Miranda, who pointedly sat on opposite sides of the Kodiak anytime they had to venture from the ship together, wouldn't hesitate to charge into withering fire to save the other. It wasn't just a one time thing, either. Kasumi had seen it dozens of times, over and over, with everybody in the squad. With all the tripwires and alarms the _Normandy_ squad set up between themselves, they somehow managed to keep from blowing themselves apart.

...until the geth showed up on their doorstep. It wasn't the geth itself she feared - it could have easily killed any of them while on the reaper. It was something else, hidden, that no one could yet see. A seventh tripwire, waiting for someone who thought they had all the answers to blunder into it. And when it did, it could blow the fragile alliances on the ship apart.

The elevator opened to the crew deck and Hadley and Matthews stepped out and wheeled left, chatting about the latest duty roster. Neither of them paid her any mind - her personal cloak made sure of that. She wasn't hiding from them, but the last thing she wanted was to have to answer any questions before Shepard had a chance to talk to the crew first. Rumors, like fire, could destroy a ship if allowed to spread.

She followed them and peeled forward to the mess as they entered the starboard berthing compartment. The mess and galley were dark and quiet. She peered through the windows to the infirmary. Inside, Doctor Chakwas sat at her desk, shuffling digital paperwork. Zaeed and Grunt stood post by the AI Compartment door, just as Shepard had ordered. The big krogan stood at rapt attention, eagerly listening to the old human mercenary leaned against the wall spinning another one of his tales. No one else was around. Shepard had not yet dropped his bomb.

She checked the ship's network. Commander Shepard was logged into his room, with his status marked _Do Not Disturb._ Evidently Shepard needed a moment to figure out what to do. What _was_ the proper way to welcome a mass-murdering, genocidal killing machine on board?

Kasumi slipped across the silent mess, past Miranda's locked door on her way to the lounge. The door indicator to life support also showed red. Thane rarely ventured out of his makeshift quarters except to go on a mission, so she didn't have to worry about running into him. All she needed to do was get back to the lounge, curl up on the couch with a good book and wait until Shepard decided to-

She stopped in the corridor. The door to Port Observation was closed like she left it, but the sensors she left around the door frame indicated it had been opened. It could have been anyone, really, coming to have a drink at the bar. But this visitor, the digital log on her omni showed, was Garrus Vakarian, and he was still there.

 _Shit._ As a sniper, Garrus was as patient of a bastard as a patient bastard could be. And as former C-Sec, he wasn't going to be satisfied with the tried and true _I didn't see nothing, officer_ routine. She pondered waiting him out but if he came looking for her here, no doubt he would look for her elsewhere. He'd ask EDI to find her, and when EDI couldn't it would only further raise tensions. With a sigh, she unveiled her cloak, put a smile on her face, and walked through the hatch.

"Hello, Kasumi." Garrus had positioned himself on her favorite couch close to the door so he'd be impossible to miss, legs casually crossed, arms wide across the back, primed and ready for conversation. "You weren't here so I let myself in."

"Garrus, what a lovely surprise. Come to join me for happy hour?"

"My joy can't be contained to a single hour. Do you have a moment?"

"For you? Always."

"Very kind. I have some serious questions, and I need honest answers."

"Oh, I've got all kinds of answers. Philosophy, art, religion, take your pick. Bear in mind I stink at math, so go easy with the differential equations."

"The category is geth. And the question is, why is Shepard hiding one in the ship's AI core instead of letting Tali dissect it like he usually does?"

"I'm pretty sure Shep said we're not supposed to discuss this. It kinda sounded like an order to me."

"There's nothing wrong with your hearing then. Good. That means you heard my question."

Kasumi tilted her head. "I ain't gonna sing, copper. I ain't no rat."

Garrus smiled thinly at her attempt to lighten the mood. "This isn't about orders. It's more serious than that. Much more. Let me speak plainly. You, Mordin and Shepard boarded a reaper on which an entire Cerberus research division was indoctrinated and reduced to husks. We lost contact with you for an unnervingly long period of time, after which you came back aboard in possession of the only intact geth anyone's managed to capture since the uprising. Found, I remind you, on the aforementioned reaper."

"And then," Garrus said, "my commanding officer, my best friend, whom I've personally seen destroy hundreds of geth on sight, whose chief engineer is a quarian and also one of his closest friends, orders the existence of said geth to be kept secret until he can 'figure out what to do with it.' When up until now there was only one thing a sane person _could_ do."

The turian leaned forward so he could see Kasumi's eyes under her hood. His desperation was palpable. "The only plausible explanation for this behavior terrifies me to my very core. Bearing in mind that if he is indoctrinated, you are too, I'm asking for an explanation that doesn't require I take swift, severe action for the safety of the ship."

Kasumi clenched her teeth, but nodded. The turian's argument was perfectly, horrifyingly rational. Could he be right? Was she holding on to an impossible story because she was there and saw what happened, or because a reaper had touched her mind and she was unconsciously helping their enemy to do their bidding?

Garrus watched her intently. Kasumi had to tell him, she knew. His only logical course of action would be to quarantine the landing party. Once that happened, no one in the crew would trust Shepard, Mordin or her again. Besides, she needed to prove to herself she was still in charge, and not acting out the will of an ancient space monster.

"There is one," Kasumi said, "and it's even crazier than what you're thinking. Still want to hear it?"

"Absolutely."

"Okay then... You see, this geth we brought back is, uh, different."

"How so?"

"Well... for one thing, it didn't try to exterminate us. As a matter of fact... it saved our lives back on the reaper."

Garrus stared at her.

"Yeah," Kasumi nodded. "We were a little surprised, too. We got jumped from behind by a bunch of those husk things. They came out of nowhere, caught all three of us unaware - even me, I'm ashamed to admit. And before we knew what was going on husk heads started bursting like popcorn. When it was done, we looked up and there on a crosswalk stood Mister Geth with his pet sniper rifle."

"And it shot the husks instead of you?" Garrus was trying not to scowl. "Maybe it had to drop them to get a clear line of sight."

"Well, yeah, I guess that's possible, except like I said the husks were _behind_ us. Mister Geth shot around each of us to get to them. Either that, or his aiming routines need a good debugging. But from what I could tell, he hit everything he was aiming at, dead solid perfect." Kasumi cleared her throat, knowing what she was about to say was only going to make her sound more crazy. Maybe she _was_ indoctrinated. "And then afterwards, um, he - that is, the geth - talked to us."

The turian remained stoic. "If this is a joke, I can't wait to hear the punchline."

"No joke. It spoke. Well, not to me. To Shep. It lowered it's weapon, stood at attention like it recognized him, then clear as day it said his name and walked off."

Garrus blinked rapidly and took a deep breath, his hand going to his comm unit.

"Look," Kasumi held up her hands. "I know how crazy this sounds, but I know what I saw. Mordin saw it too, and heard it. We all did. Mordin recorded the whole thing, if Shepard didn't. If it's indoctrination, we're in big trouble because it affects omnitools, too."

Garrus's hand slowly fell to his lap. "And he didn't want to tell Tali this, why? Is he afraid she'd want to cut it up before he had a chance to talk to it?"

Kasumi gave a little laugh. "Well, you know Shepard can't pass up a chance to talk someone's ear off. Even if it's artificial."

"Mmm-hmm." Garrus said. "But turning it back on without Tali's help? That's what I don't understand. And that's what concerns me most. There has to be a reason."

"Well, like I said. This geth seems to know Shepard."

"After all the geth he's destroyed, that's not surprising. He's got to be their public enemy number one."

"No, Garrus. This is different. This geth was damaged, long before we ran into it."

"So you said."

"Yeah, well... Let me ask you something. Did you happen to notice what it used to fix itself? Those chunks of armor on it's chest and shoulder?"

"No..." Garrus's hand went to his visor, but instead of activating his comm unit he turned on his visual playback. Kasumi could make out reflection of the airlock in the turian's eye. Dawning realization spread across the turian's face.

"You know, Shep had the same reaction when he saw it up close." Kasumi said. She didn't know what it was until Shepard mentioned it in the briefing room but she decided to leave that part out. "He just stood there for a minute, staring at it. It really spooked him. Is it significant?"

Garrus leaned back into the couch, worry on his face. "Very."

"What does it mean?"

"Well... This is going to sound hypocritical after everything you've told me, but I can't tell you. Not until we know what we're dealing with."

 _There it is,_ Kasumi thought. _The seventh trigger._ Finding out what it it was, though, didn't tell her how to disarm it. "Well, isn't this a turn of events. But based on that, if I had to guess, Shepard wants to find out that armor from the geth without anyone else listening in, including Tali."

Garrus stared at Kasumi for a few seconds before responding. "I think you may be right."

"Well... I hope this puts your mind at ease about him being indoctrinated. Or me, for that matter."

"It helps. But it poses different question."

"What does the geth know?" Kasumi shrugged. "I'm afraid I don't have the answer to that one, officer."

"That's okay." Garrus climbed to his feet. "There's only one person who does, and I know where he lives. Thanks for filling me in, Kasumi. You've been a big help."

"No problem," Kasumi said and stepped aside from the hatch. "Hey, um, listen. Do me a favor. When you talk to him, don't tell him I told you. I don't need you giving me a snitch jacket."

Garrus actually smiled, which was a welcome sight. "I'll have you know I've never once given up an informant."

"You're a darn good cop, Vakarian," Kasumi said as he exited to the corridor. "No matter what the chief says."

Garrus walked down the corridor and called the elevator to take him up to Shepard's cabin. _Do Not Disturb_ obviously didn't apply to everyone. Kasumi admired Garrus in many ways, especially the loyalty he showed his friends. If only his powers of observation were as strong, he might have noticed the slight folding of light next to him as they rode to the top level of the ship to visit their Commander.


	2. Fly on the Wall

Kasumi had been up to Shepard's quarters on the _Normandy_ on several occasions, once even by invitation. For the other times, there was a complicated route up from deck two through a service conduit in the briefing room ceiling, but it was easier just to follow Garrus on the elevator. EDI's sensors throughout the ship could sense variations in temperature, vibration, mass and even air density but there was always a way around those, provided one knew they were there. Kasumi had them all mapped out and countered a week after she arrived.

She'd been aboard the _Normandy_ for a little over a month now but she still kept up her little explorations on a regular basis to keep her skills sharp. That hadn't always been the reason. At first, she visited every corner of the ship to make sure she wouldn't signing up for a cruise on some kind of Cerberus murder barge. She didn't try to fool herself when she took the job. Cerberus and the Illusive Man scared her. They were disciplined, well funded, and vengeful - three things a good thief avoided when picking targets. She never acknowledged their attempts at recruitment or gave them a reason to put her in their data banks by stealing from them. They weren't the kind of people she wanted in her life.

But the chance to strike back at Donovan Hock was something that Kasumi couldn't pass up. To sweeten the deal, the Illusive Man promised the help of the first human Spectre himself, Commander Shepard. Happily, Shep lived up to his reputation as a hero and exceeded every one of Kasumi's expectations as a human being. Not only did _Normandy_ have no torture chamber, Shepard went out of his way to help anybody he could regardless of how many eyes, arms, fins or tentacles they had.

That was an attitude Kasumi could get behind and Shepard's motley crew was as every bit loyal to him as he was to them, human or alien. The fact there was a Cerberus logo on every wall, on every deck and every other flat surface of the ship just made the whole voyage that much more surreal.

Spying on the crew now was less about personal safety and more about entertainment and staying in the loop. Outside of missions, there wasn't a whole lot to do on board the _Normandy_ other than people watch. Kasumi was just more talented at watching them than most. People had always fascinated her... little foibles and flaws they owned up to versus what they tried to hide, the ones they knew about and ones they didn't. She had the rare opportunity to see people for who they really were when they thought no one was looking.

When it came to keeping abreast of current events, Kasumi wasn't part of the regular crew. That meant that outside of the usual scuttlebutt that got bandied about at dinner, or the occasional drunken confession in the lounge, Kasumi had to wait for news to come to her. So she went looking for it. Sometimes that meant circumventing a locked door or two...

The elevator came to a stop on deck one and Garrus stepped out. The Commander's door opened as he reached out to knock, and before he could take a step an object the the size of a basketball hurtled toward his chest. He caught it with ease.

Kasumi peered around Garrus for a better look. It was a dark gray battle helmet, scored, pitted and scarred to hell, with a wide red-on-white stripe just like the armor fused to the geth's shoulder. Garrus walked slowly into the compartment, studying the helmet. Kasumi slipped in before the hatch sealed behind them and followed two paces behind.

Shepard, sitting in his desk chair, swiveled away to face a wall of holo screens that showed a digital collage of star maps, text documents, photos and diagrams.

Helmet still in hand, Garrus walked to stand behind Shepard, his eyes locking on one picture in particular. "I don't suppose very many sets of N7-issue armor have gone missing over the past few years."

"Only one," Shepard said. A set of body armor was on display on the center screen, with a notation from a 2183 inventory of the SSV _Normandy._ It was dark gray, with the red-and-white stripe on its shoulder and helmet. "I wonder who has the rest of it? Maybe Harbinger's giving out pieces to his friends now."

"Well, I can't speak for Harbinger, but if it were me I'd have it hanging over my mantle."

Shepard glanced up at Garrus. "You would, wouldn't you?" He snatched the helmet from the turian's hands and set it down on his desk. "What took you so long?"

Kasumi caught the turian's eyes as they flicked to the side. She tensed. Was he about to rat her out? How would Shepard react if Garrus revealed what she'd told him, against Shepard's order? Shepard was pretty mellow as far as jack-booted military muscle went, and he gave his underlings a lot of latitude when it came to their work... but boy did Shepard raise hell if someone disobeyed a direct order.

Garrus shrugged. "I hate to admit it but I missed it completely in the airlock. I didn't notice until a few minutes ago when I was reviewing my camera feed."

"Some detective."

Kasumi relaxed. Garrus gave her a perfect out. She shouldn't have been surprised. The moment she met Garrus she pegged him as someone with integrity, and even as a thief, that mattered a lot to her. It wasn't what you took or the lies you told, but rather who would suffer the consequences. In spite of the old saying, there _was_ honor among some thieves. _Score one for Garrus,_ she thought.

"It wasn't your usual crime scene, was it," Garrus said. "Are you alright?"

"My brain feels like it's about to explode. It's not something I was expecting to see again and it's brought back some things I thought I'd dealt with. Hell, I still can't believe what I'm seeing here, now."

"That's understandable. I have to say, this poses a lot of interesting questions."

Shepard pointed to a feed from the AI core of their sleeping guest. Frustration filled his tone and his posture. "Yeah, like how the hell did they get it? Did the geth have me before Cerberus? Or did they get it from somewhere else? I've been back almost a year and not even Miranda can give me a full accounting of what happened. I thought I'd finally come to grips with it all, having this bottomless pit in my memory, but now... Shit. What do I do here, Garrus?"

"Well... First, since this involves the geth, I think the first step is telling the person who knows the most about them. Hint, hint."

Shepard looked up at Garrus, then keyed his omnitool. The imagery on the center screen shifted, then resolved into the dark corridors of the dead reaper. "I want you to see something first."

The landing party's encounter with the geth played out before them. Even though Garrus had already gotten the story from Kasumi, he grunted with surprise at the sound of the geth speaking. It was either a nice bit of acting, or he was really that surprised. She would ask him about it later if it wouldn't implicate herself in her recreational espionage.

The video ended with the final battle with the husks on the reaper and the leap to _Normandy's_ airlock. Shepard watched Garrus the entire time for his reaction. Garrus simply reached out to the controls and scanned back to where the geth lowered the barrier to allow Shepard access to the core chamber, then further to the point where it lowered its weapon and addressed the Commander.

"So?" Shepard asked. "Am I crazy, or did a geth trooper wearing the armor I died in save my life and then call me by name aboard a dead reaper?"

"It sure looks that way."

"Good. I'll have Doctor Chakwas fit us for matching straight jackets. I'll let you pick the color."

"I don't get it, though. This is what you don't want Tali to see? I'm missing something here."

Shepard massaged his temple. "What's our number one rule when it comes to salvaged geth hardware?"

Garrus shrugged. "Give it to Tali."

"Give it to Tali," Shepard confirmed. "She's drilled it into our heads, over and over. A single geth runtime can get into our network, start replicating and take over an unprotected ship in seconds. The Migrant Fleet has dedicated labs on special ships designed to contain AI outbreaks, so the safest option is to send it back to the Migrant Fleet for analysis. And that's what we've always done. It's the only safe, sane course of action.

"But what's ever come of it? We've never gotten anything back from the Migrant Fleet after we've sent them intel on the geth. Not once. Not to me, Alliance Command, anything, ever, going back to when I first met Tali. It's all gone into a black hole. The times I did ask for a follow-up, I got back a non-committal 'still under investigation.' Everything we know about the geth we've had to learn on our own."

Shepard switched the screen back to the feed from the AI core that showed the geth platform lying on its back, with the remnants of the N7 logo visible on its chest. "If I turn this over to them, I may never find out what this means."

"Come on, Shepard," Garrus said. "We've only ever sent back fragments. Bits and pieces, never a whole platform. That's not a lot to work with. But this? You make a case to Tali about this, I fear for the life of any quarian in the Fleet who tries to hold out on you. Tali will want to find out just as bad as you do, and you know she won't hold back. Besides, two seconds after the quarians decode it they'll call you up to deliver whatever superweapon they cook up to Rannoch because they know they can trust you to get the job done, and you'll get all the answers you need. There might even be a thank you-note in it from Admiral Zorah. Hell, he might even _smile."_

"Maybe. But what happens if it self destructs like every other geth has done?"

"What makes you think it won't do that if we wake it up here?"

"Because it didn't." Shepard pointed at the screen. "It should have done that when the husks took it down on the reaper. Instead, shut itself down in a way so it could be restarted. I don't know. It's almost like it wanted us to recover it."

That got a look of disbelief from the turian. "I don't know if you've considered this, but that would be the perfect way to trick us to bring it on board. Put it in your armor, program it to say your name and save your life. Make you think it's gone rogue against the reapers so you bring it back to the ship and turn it on. Then they've finally got you where they want you. That makes way more sense than anything else. Pretty cunning, actually."

"It could have shot me on the reaper. Hell, they could have sent a thousand platforms to the reaper if they wanted me dead. I honestly don't think they were expecting to find me there. Did you happen to notice what it was doing when we found it the second time? It was working to destroy the reaper core, just like we were planning to. Instead of defending it, it was trying to help us. It even dropped its barrier to let us in."

"That's a pretty dangerous assumption. You don't know what it was doing there. Look, even if this isn't some kind of trap, and it doesn't commit digital suicide the moment you switch it on, you don't know anything about geth programming. How exactly do you plan to interface with it without Tali's help?"

"I don't need to. This one can talk. I can ask it directly, no interface needed. Look, if it sees Tali, or even thinks a quarian is on board it may wipe itself out, or even go on the offensive. If I talk to it alone, maybe it will cooperate."

"Sounds to me like you've already made up your mind."

Shepard turned around in his chair. "I've got two years I can't account for. That geth is wearing what I had on the last time I'm certain I was still me. If it can tell me anything at all about what happened after I died, it's worth the risk. This is important to me, Garrus. More than you know."

"This is important to Tali, too. Have you thought about what she'll do when she finds out? You may be firing the best shot the quarians have into the ground. If it self-destructs, or we have to put it down because it attacks us, their chance to learn from it is gone forever."

Shepard pointed to the screens. "This one _didn't_ attack us. It tried to help us."

"Why?"

"That's what I want to find out. Don't you?"

"Okay, let's say it is friendly. Then what? Keep it as a pet? Set it up on a date with EDI? Ask it nicely to shut itself down so we can hand it over to the Migrant Fleet then? How exactly do you think this will play out?"

Shepard closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair with a heavy sigh. "I'm turning it back on."

"At least tell her before you do, then," Garrus said. "Give her a chance to speak her mind before you do something you can't take back. You owe her that much. If you go behind her back on this and she finds out, she will resent it as long as you both live. You don't want to risk that."

Shepard leaned forward with his face in his hands for what seemed like an eternity. He finally reached out to his console to open his comm. "EDI? Have Tali report to my quarters if she's not in the middle of something."

"Right away, Shepard," EDI said.

 _If she's not in the middle of something._ Kasumi smiled even though no one could see it. If Tali was in the middle of a reactor meltdown, she might take a moment to put a pan underneath it before rushing to see what Shepard wanted.

"Tali is on her way," EDI said a few seconds later.

"Thanks, EDI."

Garrus nodded. "I think it's the smart move."

Shepard sighed. "You're probably right."

"As per SOP. Want me to stick around?"

"Damn right I do," Shepard said as he queued up video segments from the reaper excursion. "I want you here to take the blame when this blows up in my face."

Garrus chuckled. "You know, this wouldn't be a problem if you didn't try and socialize with every monster you meet. Rachni, reapers... now geth. You just can't resist the urge to talk someone's ear off, can you?"

Kasumi gaped at Garrus even though he couldn't see her. It was one of the punishments that came with being a serial eavesdropper, and it was always disappointing when it happened. _That dirty stinker just stole my line,_ Kasumi thought as the door to the elevator chimed, announcing the arrival of either the solution or cause for all of Shepard's upcoming problems.


	3. Irresistible Forces

The hatch leading to the elevator chimed. Garrus tapped a button on his omnitool, halting his stopwatch. "And we have a new record."

"What?" Shepard asked.

"Nothing."

"Come in, Tali," Shepard said through the intercom and opened the door. Kasumi, still cloaked, stepped to the side to make sure there wouldn't be an unfortunate collision but also so she'd have a good view. Words were only part of any conversation.

Tali walked into Shepard's office. She had no idea how much her body language betrayed her most private thoughts, especially her eyes. They were the greatest tattle-tale for sentient beings throughout the galaxy. Unfortunately, they were also the only thing visible on her face, which only highlighted the effect. Like always, they brightened when she saw Shepard, but the joy faded anytime she saw anyone else with him.

 _Poor Tali,_ Kasumi thought. _You can never catch a break, can you?_

"Shepard," Tali said melodically before turning flat as could be. "Garrus."

Shepard waved her over to his workstation. "Thanks for coming up. I need your particular expertise. Have a look at this."

"Oh," Tali hurried over to Shepard while trying not to rush at the same time, resulting in an awkward casual saunter. Garrus shook his head and patted his heart as she passed. Tali responded with an abrupt hand gesture that probably meant something really mean among quarians. Shepard saw none of it, of course. "What can I do for you?"

"We found something interesting on the reaper."

"I heard," Tali said. "The great mystery in the AI Core. Everyone's talking about it. Some people are saying it's a reaper artifact. It's not." She looked back and forth between Shepard and Garrus, laughing nervously. "Is it?"

"No, nothing like that."

"Oh, good," Tali said. She leaned over Shepard's desk, one hand placed carefully on the back of his chair, her voice full of light again. "I didn't feel like getting indoctrinated today. So, what have we got here?" Her eyes narrowed behind her mask. "Huh. Look at that. There were geth on board, were there? That figures. Still helping their new masters obviously."

Shepard cast a worried look over his shoulder at Garrus.

"Wow," Tali said. "Someone took a chunk out of it. Your handiwork, I assume?"

"Not this time," Shepard tapped a display showing a full scan of the geth's internals, including its power state.

The quarian stood up straight, then leaned in close again to double-check what she was seeing. "It's operational?"

"That's right."

Tali couldn't stop herself. She launched herself into Shepard, wrapping her arms around him, crying and laughing at the same time, bouncing up and down like she always did when excited. "You got a live one! Oh, keelah! Thank you! Thank you!"

Shepard hugged her back, but it was an emotionless, token reciprocal gesture that matched the empty look in his eyes. He glared at Garrus, a micro-expression that lasted a fraction of a second but said so much. It had already gone off the rails for him.

 _Tell her,_ Kasumi willed Shepard. _If you drag it out, it will only be worse._

"Okay," Tali turned back to the screens and took a few deep breaths to compose herself. "EDI's got redundant firewalls up, good. Good, good. All local ports are closed, all transmitters and receivers in the room disabled, good. Door is guarded - they're on the wrong side though, Shepard. Okay, um, I'll need to get some gear from my quarters. Oh, and I might need help from Mordin. And maybe Jacob, he knows his way around an omnitool, and, oh! I need to call my father-"

"Tali..."

"-to let him know to start making preparations to receive a _live geth platform!"_

"Tali," Shepard reached up and touched the quarian's shoulder. She turned towards him, eyes aglow with hope. "Hold up. There's something else you need to see first."

There was smile frozen somewhere behind Tali's mask. "What is it?"

Without a word, Shepard played back the video as he'd done for Garrus, starting at the first encounter with the strange, talking geth. He leaned back in his chair, his hand over his mouth as Tali watched the recording from the reaper.

She took a step backwards when the geth uttered Shepard's name. She reached out to the display and ran it back to watch it again. She looked at Shepard.

He nodded toward the screen. "Keep watching."

The geth hovered over a console near the reaper's mass effect core, protected behind a shimmering barrier. It noticed their arrival and then shut the barrier down to let them in. Soon after, the geth was knocked to the deck not by rifle fire from Shepard or his team, but by the husks.

The playback ended. Tali squinted at the screen. "This doesn't make sense."

"I know," Shepard said. "Has there ever been a record of geth acting like this?"

Tali wrapped her arms around herself as if chilled. "None. No geth has attempted comunication since they terminated connectivity at the start of the uprising. At least not with us."

"And it was fighting against the husks, not us. What do you think it means?"

Tali shook her head, still concentrating on the monitors. She exhaled deeply. "I don't know. Maybe it's malfunctioning, missing instructions because it's cut off from the collective. I've never seen anything like it."

"Well, it threw me for a loop too. But it's obvious it wasn't there to protect the reaper from us. I think it was trying to destroy it. Same as we were."

Tali finally regained her composure but was clearly unsettled by Shepard's words. "We shouldn't jump to any conclusions. It might have been trying to destroy to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. We'll find out for sure when we send it back to the Fleet."

Other than the sound of the ventilation system, the compartment fell dead silent. Shepard said nothing. Neither did Garrus, and of course Kasumi wasn't about to interject herself into the conversation.

"What's wrong?" Tali asked.

Shepard reached out and rotated the holographic image of the geth with his hands, and zoomed in on the armor on its chest. The battered N7 logo was clearly visible.

"What am I looking at?" Tali cocked her head at the image, then looked down at Shepard's old helmet on the desk, then back to the screen. She started to breathe heavily again. "Get it off the ship, Shepard. Right now."

"Wait a minute-"

"It's a trap," Tali started punching in commands on Shepard's console. "We need to get rid of it, now! Keelah, I hope it's not too late. EDI? Initiate Geth Outbreak isolation routines! Tell Grunt and Zaeed-"

Shepard pushed between the quarian and the console. "Belay that! EDI, no action!"

"Shepard!" Tali tried to push around him. "What's wrong with you?"

"Tali listen-"

"It could activate any second! How long has it been since you brought it on board? Oh gods, we need to run scans on every network segment on the ship! There could be geth homing in on us right now!"

Shepard grabbed the quarian's wrists. "Tali, no! I need to activate it. Do you hear me? I _want_ to turn it on. That's why you're here."

Kasumi winced. Shepard couldn't have looked or sounded more like a madman if he tried.

Tali looked at him like he just ordered the _Normandy_ to fly into a black hole. The very notion of voluntarily rebooting a geth was so crazy for her that she couldn't even get the words out. She pulled away, her eyes wide with fright. "Have you lost your mind?"

"Sometimes I wonder."

That quip was obviously supposed to lighten the mood, but Tali didn't find it funny at all. "Garrus, I think he may be indoctrinated."

 _There it is,_ Kasumi thought. _The "I" word._ From now on, if anyone on the _Normandy_ changed their behavior in any way, if they stopped putting cream in their morning coffee, it was going to be chalked up to indoctrination. But Shepard _was_ on a reaper. It wasn't an irrational concern, considering what he was asking.

Shepard nodded. "I know this sounds crazy. Believe me. I've scheduled a complete examination with Doctor Chakwas to check out everybody who was over there."

 _Aw crap,_ Kasumi said to herself. _There goes your afternoon. Turn your brain and cough._

Tali stared at Garrus, waiting for him to weigh in. Turian voices were always smooth, but Garrus really turned it on now for maximum sincerity. "I don't think he's any more crazy now than when he went over there. We just need to to take a closer look at this before we give it away."

"What's wrong with you?" Tali said. "It's geth _._ You know what they're capable of!"

"Tali, listen," Shepard took a step toward her.

Tali backed toward the elevator, keeping Shepard and Garrus in front of her like they were pack hunters waiting to strike. It wasn't just concern anymore. She was _afraid._ "I can't let you do this. I won't."

One reason Kasumi was so successful in her line of work was she could predict what people would do before they did it, but sometimes it was a coin toss and that's when things got sticky. Shepard was standing next to his console, within arm's reach locking the hatch to trap Tali on the top deck. Tali would panic. As dangerous as the quarian was when facing geth, it was nothing compared to what she might do if she thought she'd lost her beloved commander to the reapers.

Thankfully, Shepard held his hands in front of him instead of reaching for door controls. "Do me a favor, okay? Just think about it. The best way to re-activate it while minimizing the danger."

Tali inched closer to the door. "The best way is not to do it, period!"

"I'm not going to make it an order. But I need your help here, and it would be a lot better for everyone involved if it was done with your supervision. Would ask that if I were indoctrinated?"

"I can't believe you're asking it at all."

"Get back to Engineering and think about it. In the mean time, Chakwas will give me a thorough examination. But when that's done, I'm turning it back on, with or without your help. So don't wait too long."

"Shepard, please..."

"Dismissed."

Tali withered where she stood. "Aye, sir." She looked to Garrus for a last-minute show of support but didn't get it. Her head drooped and she turned and plodded back toward the elevator.

_Unstoppable Force, meet the Immovable Object. Object, this the Force. You two are gonna get along great._

Garrus watched Tali go, his voice barely louder than a whisper. "You want me to...?"

"No," Shepard punched up the ship's security network on his workstation, and an image of Tali waiting outside for the elevator appeared.

It was a gut check, Kasumi realized. On which deck would Tali exit? Deck four, as per Shepard's order or somewhere else, like say the crew deck? It was a smart play, or at least better than the alternative of locking Tali in the tower. If she wanted to get to the AI Core, she had to get through Zaeed and Grunt. The _Normandy's_ resident bruisers respected Tali, and even liked her, but they answered to Shepard and Shepard alone. Tali was as formidable in a fight as anyone on the ship, but against the likes of both Zaeed and Grunt she had no chance. The question now was would Tali realize that in her agitated state? Fear could sometimes make the smartest people do the stupidest things.

And if Tali did get off on deck three instead of going to Engineering? It would pretty much force Shepard's hand. He'd either have to hand the geth over to Tali, or physically restrain her to keep her from destroying it. The whole crew would think he'd gone off the deep end.

The elevator chimed in the alcove outside. One way or another, it was about to be decided. Kasumi glanced at Shepard and Garrus, who remained fixated on the security monitor. With a running leap, Kasumi cartwheeled through the open hatch, redirected off the wall in the alcove outside and somersaulted through the elevator door right as it closed behind Tali.

 _That's the worst thing about being you,_ Kasumi thought as the elevator descended. _You do the coolest moves all the time and no one ever sees it..._

* * *

The mess hall was deserted. Tali walked past the empty tables and stopped in front of the windows to the Infirmary. Inside, Zaeed was still sharing stories with Grunt, with Doctor Chakwas still at her desk doing her best to ignore him.

 _Okay, Tali... What are you thinking, here?_ Kasumi walked ahead of the engineer to get a good look at her eyes. Kasumi hadn't mastered mind reading, but it was the next best thing. But it wasn't Tali's eyes that were flashing now.

The light on the quarian's helmet was flickering on and off, and Kasumi could see the outline of her face shift as her mouth moved. Kasumi raised up her omni and fired an invisible, low-power laser into the side of Tali's helmet. Tali's voice might not be audible outside her headgear, but the vibrations it made against her second skin were still measurable, and decodable.

"Shepard's planning on turning it on," Tali said.

 _"I know,"_ a human male replied. It was Jacob. _"Where are you?"_

"Outside the infirmary. You?"

_"Armory. Been up here since we got back, fitting everything we got up here with zapper loads, you know, for no particular reason. Your shotgun's cleaned and ready, by the way. I can bring it along."_

Tali just kept standing there, staring, her hands clenched at her sides. Kasumi could hear her labored breathing in her respirator. _She's going in_. _She's going to try and destroy the geth._ What would Zaeed and Grunt do? Tali might be able talk her way past Zaeed. As Chief Engineer and close as she was to Shepard, she practically had run of the ship. But Grunt would definitely check in with Shepard, no matter what. After that... it would get ugly, especially if Jacob joined in.

 _"Still with me?"_ Jacob asked.

Kasumi stepped behind Tali and deactivated her cloak. "Hi, Tali!"

Tali jumped, startled. She replied to Jacob, still unaware Kasumi could hear. "Stand by. Someone's here."

_"Roger that."_

Tali turned around, trying not to sound flustered. "Kasumi! Hi!"

"Guess Shepard finally told you what we brought back from our last field trip, huh?"

"Yeah. He did."

"Pretty wild. So, uh, you and Shepard have a plan?"

"Uh, no," Tali's voice shook. She had to clear her throat. "We're still looking at options."

 _So I heard,_ Kasumi thought. As nervous as Tali was, stuttering and jittery in her every move, Kasumi displayed the opposite. Confidently and calmly, she moved next to Tali so they could look through the window together. "It's a crazy situation. Have to say, it's been a day of firsts for me. My first reaper. First husks... My first geth."

"Yeah, um, Kasumi. Listen I don't mean to be rude but, I- I've got a lot of work to do."

"Oh, I can understand that. I bet you've got all kinds of plans for that thing. I'll get out of your way but... can I ask you something? About Shepard."

Tali had been on the verge of walking away until Kasumi dropped Shepard's name. That _always_ worked. "What about him?"

Kasumi looked around as if to make sure no one else would hear them. "Well, when we were on the reaper and found our 'guest,' Shepard seemed particularly spooked. I mean, we were on a death machine designed to wipe out organic life crewed by zombie Cerberus scientists which is about as creepy as it gets. I know I was freaked out, but apparently that's Shep does on the weekends or something because he didn't bat an eye... But for some reason that geth really gave him the heebie-jeebies. I mean, haven't been with the squad for very long I know, but maybe... he isn't as tough as advertised?"

That did it. Tali whirled around to face her. "What did you just say?"

"Well... Don't get me wrong. I mean, look at what he did for me. Faced down one of the most powerful gun runners in the galaxy with a smile. Then there was that little side trip to Tuchanka. He helped Grunt take down a thresher maw, his second one apparently, and those things are pretty scary, right? He rescued Garrus from Omega, saved the crew of the Gernsbach... Took Jack back to Pragia. Oh god, that place... I can't believe people would do that to each other, but Shepard didn't bat an eye there, either. And he plucked you from that geth hive on what was it called? Hailstone?"

"Haestrom."

"Yeah, Haestrom. All that after the battle of the Citadel? How many geth did he face down there, along with Sovereign to boot?" Kasumi laughed. "What am I telling you for, you were actually there. Through all of that, have you ever known Shep to be afraid of anything?"

Tali looked back through the window. "No."

Kasumi clutched her arms around herself for added effect. "Well, whatever it is, it's got to be pretty important to worry him like that, don't you think?"

Tears glinted along the edges of Tali's reflective eyes.

"Sorry, I wasn't trying to run him down or anything. I just... never saw anything get to him like that. But why am I still even rambling on about this? He's got you backing him up. With you in his corner, he's got nothing to worry about and he knows it."

Tali looked down at the deck.

"Thanks for letting me talk this out. I feel a lot better. Well... I'll let you get to it. I know Shepard's probably waiting on you."

"Right."

Kasumi started for the main corridor and the lounge. "Let me know if I can lend a hand. I've got two of them, and they're always looking for something new to play with!"

"I will," Tali said. "Thanks."

Kasumi rounded the bend and quickly re-engaged her cloak. She padded her way back to Tali, who was still facing the infirmary window. She aimed her laser mic at Tali's helmet. Jacob was talking again.

_"Took you a while to get back to me. Was starting to get worried something happened down there."_

"No, it's okay. It was just Kasumi, wanting to know what was going on."

 _"So what_ is _going on, Tali?"_

"Just... keep doing what you're doing. Shepard will call you with instructions after we come up with a plan."

There was a pause. _"Okay then. If you think that's the best way to play it, I'm on board."_

"I do."

_"All right then. Later."_

The connection terminated. Tali sat down heavily on a bench at one of the nearby tables, her helmet in her hands. Her shoulders heaved with a mighty sigh. She took a deep breath, sat up and activated her comms. "Shepard? I'm down in the mess. I'm ready... to go over contingency plans for when we activate the geth."

Shepard sounded relieved, even over the radio. _"Thanks, Tali. I can't tell you how much this means to me. I'll be right down."_

"See you in a minute," Tali said, and then leaned forward to hold her head in her hands again. "Keelah..."

Kasumi lingered for a moment. No one would ever understand what poor Tali was going through. A man she trusted more than anyone in the universe, the most important person in her life, asked her to put him ahead her entire civilization... and she did it. She might be wasting the most important development of the war for someone who wasn't even a member of her species.

But it wasn't just for love. Everything Kasumi said about Shepard was true, and Tali knew it. The only reason anyone on any civilized world in the whole galaxy was still alive was because of one person. And that one person wanted what was in a machine's memory banks badly enough to risk activating a geth on his own ship. It was a sacrifice, and a risk, sure. But who had sacrificed more than Shepard?

Kasumi always felt that Donovan Hock had taken her world from her, but ever since meeting Tali it was a hollow expression. The quarians literally lost their world, their entire civilization to the geth. How would she have reacted if instead of killing Hock, Shepard had brought him aboard the _Normandy_ for a nice chat and a few drinks, with the possibility that he might let the bastard live? Kasumi had killed before, but only once did she ever come close to enjoying it, and that was Hock.

Maybe, Kasumi thought, after Shepard got what he needed from the geht they could figure out how to shut it down and hand it over to the quarians intact. Maybe it was like Miranda said earlier, that the N7 armor on the geth was just a convenient field repair. Maybe Garrus was right, and the geth recognized Shepard simply because he'd killed so many of them in the past. Maybe once Shepard learned what the geth knew, they could get the it off the ship and everything could go back to normal.

The elevator door _dinged_ behind her and Shepard stepped out, with Garrus right behind him. The turian ex-cop followed his undead Cerberus Commander to go talk to a quarian about activating the live geth currently sleeping in the bedroom of the ship's own resident, and very illegal, artificial intelligence.

 _Normal,_ Kasumi thought, _being a relative term..._


	4. He Followed Me Home, Can We Keep Him?

No one in  _Normandy's_ galley paid attention to Kasumi even though she now stood in plain sight. They were too busy straining to see through the infirmary windows at the door to the AI Core. Grunt and Zaeed still stood watch outside, but now everyone knew the "IFF component" was really a functioning geth platform. Shipwide security precautions were in effect, ranging from software, to hardware, to  _hardware_ \- the kind used to put holes into software. Jacob unlocked the armory, and the ship looked like it was readying for invasion as armed crew members now patrolled the corridors.

Protection aside, Kasumi thought, it was only fair to let the crew know what was happening. Finding out your omnitool or control panel was suddenly under geth control when you turned it on would ruin anybody's day. Shepard would have never heard the end of it.

But less than an hour later, Shepard canceled the alert. The geth, he announced, wasn't hostile. Everyone was to resume their normal duties, just like that.  _Never mind, turns out the killer machine isn't anything to worry about. Back to work._ Of course, everyone who wasn't on duty ran straight down to the mess to see what was going on - and more importantly, gossip about it. Regular crew like Matthews, Hadley, and Rolston mingled with the likes of Jack, Thane and Samara. Kasumi briefly considered sneaking into the Core to see first hand, but with the extra security in place she might cause a panic if EDI detected any anomalies so she resigned herself to having to watch with the peanut gallery outside.

Kasumi wished she'd chanced it now, since everyone now looked to her for answers. Everybody knew she was with Shepard on the reaper when they found the geth, but that didn't keep them from asking the same questions over and over.

"You actually saw it, right?" Matthews asked. Everybody kept their voices low, as if somehow the sound might carry through the window and the sentient machine would come looking for them. "You helped bring it on board?"

"I did, and I did," Kasumi said.

Thane, who very well might have had a weapon beneath his jacket, stared through the window with his hands behind his back. "Do you also agree with the Commander that this particular geth is not a threat?"

"Well, we didn't have much of a chance to get to know each other. But since it used the husks for target practice instead of us, it's good sign."

Samara's eyes never left the window. "I remember the day the geth uprising began. There was no difference between combatant and non-combatant. The geth did not discriminate. Billions were slaughtered by these machines."

The way Samara said  _billions_  made everyone in the room tense. Almost everyone... Jack sat on top of the table behind them with her legs dangling over the edge. She stayed at the edge of the group but occasionally slurped loudly from a bowl of soup so no one would forget she was there. "Bet Little Miss Fishbowl isn't happy about this."

That got silent nods of agreement from half the crowd, while others spared the convict irritated glances or rolled their eyes. Kelly Chambers in particular looked distraught at the callous remark. "This torture for her. I can't believe the Commander would be so insensitive."

"Well," Kasumi didn't like hostility building around her. Uncertainty and fear were a bad combination. Maybe it would have been better if Shepard kept the geth secret until he'd made a decision about it, after all? "From what I heard he didn't do it lightly."

"Where is Tali?" Thane asked. "I'm surprised she's not here."

Jack shrugged. "Down in engineering with her finger on the self-destruct button?"

That provoked scattered laughter until Miranda walked into the compartment from the lift, flanked by Garrus. "Chief Zorah is monitoring from Engineering, as per Commander Shepard's orders."

"Fuck," Jack set her bowl down on the table at the sound of Miranda's voice.  _So much for easing tensions,_  Kasumi thought. But Miranda, maybe sensing everyone was on edge, didn't make an issue of the con's choice of seating.

"But she  _is_  watching, right?" Hadley asked.

"She is," Garrus confirmed. "Everything's being done with her supervision to prevent an incident."

That seemed to calm everyone's nerves. Until Jack pulled her legs up and spun herself around to face the turian and the XO. "So is Shepard a reaper puppet now, or what?"

 _That_  little verbal grenade got everyone talking. All around Kasumi, especially the human crew, started talking at once.

"Commander Shepard will make an announcement when he's ready." Miranda's expression was stern though she kept her cool. But everyone kept talking over her. She raised her hands and spoke loudly over the din. "All right, clear the compartment. Unless you're supposed to be here, be somewhere else." She gave Garrus a little side glance.

The turian immediately began ushering people aft toward the lift. "Okay, everybody out. Anybody still here in thirty seconds will either be helping me out in the Battery or scrubbing pots in the galley for the duration of the shift. The mess is off limits until further notice. Let's go. Move it. Move it."

Miranda, hands on her hips, watched Jack slide off the table top, leaving the soup bowl behind. She pointed to it. "That's not where that belongs."

"The maid'll get it," Jack said.

Garrus cocked his head at Jack as she passed. "Please?"

Jack paused, then smiled pleasantly at Garrus. "Sure thing." She walked back to pick up her bowl, glaring at Miranda the whole time. "All you gotta do is ask nicely."

"Thank you," Garrus said, keeping a close eye on both Jack and Miranda until they were a safe distance apart.

Kasumi stayed behind as the rest of the crew filed toward the aft exits. She was obviously included in the order to clear out, but not knowing things was never on her to-do list. Maybe since she was actually part of the team that discovered the geth and tipped Garrus off about it earlier, he'd reciprocate. When the last of the crew had gone, she tapped him on the shoulder.

Garrus rarely showed impatience, but it was clear he wasn't in the mood for any further insubordination when he whirled around to face her. "Ah, my first volunteer. Would you prefer fault tolerance testing in the battery, or cleaning out the fridge? Choose quickly, or you get to do both."

"Uh, new girl here," Kasumi said quickly and raised her hand. "Not looking for work. I just have a question. Totally, one hundred-percent unrelated to anything associated with the geth, I promise."

Garrus's eyes narrowed. "What is it?"

Part of being a thief was always being able to explain why you were doing something you weren't supposed to be doing on a moment's notice. One of the best diversions was to let people think they caught you doing something else entirely. "Well, after coming back aboard from our last trip, from anywhere, really, Jacob's always having to schlep our gear back to the armory. I don't really have much to do on ship, and I thought maybe... he could use an assistant to help him clean up. He shouldn't have to do it all by himself."

At mention of Jacob's name, both Miranda and Garrus shared a knowing smirk. Kasumi could see the thought germinate in their brains as easily as if they had windows in their foreheads.  _That's right, Kasumi has the hots for Jacob. Isn't she cute for trying to capitalize on that while hiding behind a lame, transparent excuse?  
_

Miranda, confident as always about always being right, swallowed it hook, line and sinker. "Mister Taylor is quite capable of managing the armory, but it's very kind of you to offer."

"Well," Kasumi said, grinning from under her cloak. "Just trying to help out, you know."

"You're a true team player." Garrus cast a meaningful look toward the exit. "We can discuss it at the next staff meeting. Now, how can I put this delicately? Shoo."

"Okay, I'm going, I'm going. Sheesh." Kasumi could feel their eyes on her as walked across the mess toward the lounge and cloaked the instant she was out of sight. She skulked back to the corner by Miranda's office. She was going to find out what was going on, one way or another.

"I swear," Miranda said as she and Garrus walked back toward her door. "She's almost as bad as Tali."

"Different story altogether. Kasumi's desires are a bit more... basic."

Kasumi shrugged, even though they couldn't see her. What could she say? Jacob was hot. She wasn't looking to discuss philosophy or economics with the man, let alone start picking out living room furniture.

"Regardless," Miranda said, "We shouldn't encourage fraternization on the ship. We're not running a dating service."

_Party pooper._

Miranda stopped in front of her door and it whooshed open. "You coming in?"

Garrus leaned seductively against the wall, his voice dropping to a low purr. "Speaking of fraternization... Are we starting early today?" Miranda snapped her fingers and pointed into her quarters. Garrus gave her a piercing look as he walked by. "I do love a woman who takes charge."

Kasumi grinned at the turian's swagger, and slipped through the door before it could close behind them. Garrus was no stranger to Miranda's quarters. Theirs was a fascinating relationship not because of the oddity of an interspecies pairing, but because of their wildly conflicting personalities. Some relationships thrived on conflict, and at the start Kasumi suspected whatever was going on between them must have been very satisfying indeed.

Every night without fail, Garrus strolled to Miranda's door before he turned in. Sometimes it would just be a quickie, other times the turian wouldn't make it back to his own quarters until the next morning. And it was always Garrus visiting Miranda, which seemed a bit selfish on the human's part... or so Kasumi thought until curiosity got the better of her. Even though she spied on everyone as a rule, she actually respected the privacy of those wanting to share a little moment together. Some things shouldn't be stolen.

But she just had to know what the two of them did together, night after night, and decided to peek just once, just to see.

It was absolutely, positively the least romantic encounter imaginable. Miranda sat at her desk, surrounded by holo-screens, while Garrus lounged on the nearby couch with several datapads and his omnitool. For the first hour they didn't talk or even make eye contact. When they finally did speak, it was to clarify what size of power coupling was needed for some doo-dad on the shuttle, then they discussed the best way to reshuffle sublevel storage to make it easier to access replacement parts. Then, things got  _really_ hot and heavy when they moved on to duty rosters.

It was so disappointing. It wasn't some forbidden, doomed affair between a suave turian commando who somehow sniped a human supremacist's heart, forcing them to hide their love from the prejudice and scorn of an unfeeling galaxy that wanted to tear them apart. Garrus and Miranda weren't hopeless romantics, they were just tireless workaholics. Coupling wouldn't happen without direct orders, and even then filling out the proper paperwork would probably serve as foreplay. That night and every night, each rendezvous was just another shift for both of them.

That wasn't entirely true, Kasumi thought as Miranda walked straight to her desk, as usual, and Garrus plopped down on the couch in his usual spot across from her. They shared a fetish for organization, but it was more than that. Thanks to their efforts, a day's issues seldom turned into tomorrow's problems. Miranda handled the ship's business, and Garrus managed the squad; Shepard's right and left hands on the  _Normandy._ Together, they formed quite a team, which was actually more satisfying than some silly romantic projection.

Miranda sat at her desk with her head in her hands behind a wall of holo screens. "Shepard's going to be the death of me. Do you know what I found the other day? A gray hair."

"Uh," Garris said from the couch. "Congratulations?"

"You don't understand. Gray hair is a sign of stress in humans. I don't get gray hairs.  _Ever._  He did this to me." Miranda pointed to one of her screens. "Have you see this? Over one hundred emails from the crew about the geth in the past half hour. Five requests for transfer. The Illusive Man is hounding me every ten minutes for Shepard's report on the IFF, and Doctor Chakwas is threatening to resign if we don't get Massani out of the infirmary by the end of the day. She's piped a live feed to my omnitool. He does not shut up."

Garrus stretched out with his hands behind his head. "These are what I like to refer to as 'XO Problems.' Let me know when it becomes a squad issue."

Miranda sounded genuinely desperate. "Garrus, I'm begging you here..."

"All right, I have a solution," Garrus said. "Shave your head bald. Problem solved."

Miranda slumped in her chair. "You are not helping!"

"Maybe get a few tattoos. I have the perfect consultant for you..."

Instead of getting angry, Miranda actually laughed. Kasumi had to try not to giggle herself. No one on the ship other than Shepard would ever think of teasing Miranda Lawson. She simply wouldn't tolerate it. Garrus had obviously joined a very exclusive club.

"I'm serious," Miranda said. "We need to put a stop to this now, before he ends up adopting the damn thing. That's where this is headed, you know. Mark my words. We are going to end up with a geth mascot on this ship."

"Never happen," Garrus said. "Shepard will either get the information he needs from it or he won't. Either way, that thing is on its way to the Migrant Fleet when he's done. This is a temporary problem with a half-life measured in hours."

"Don't be so sure. He can't resist picking up strays. Do you know what it took to keep him from bringing that vermin from Tuchanka on board? A varren for god's sake!"

"Oh, come on. Urz was adorable."

"And he'd be roaming around the ship right now, dropping little piles everywhere if I hadn't put my foot down."

Kasumi had to stifle another laugh as she imagined the Cerberus Operative walking out of her office and stepping in varren poo.

"Of course Shepard promised he'd feed it and take care of it, but guess who would end up actually doing it?"

Garrus grinned. "Kelly."

Miranda rolled her eyes. "You know, I bet the XO of the original  _Normandy_  probably thought you were only a temporary problem, too. Three years later and I'm stuck with you."

"Well, I'm adorable too. And house-trained. Listen, you're forgetting one key thing: the Tali factor. I know that usually doesn't work in your favor, but she's your best guarantee that the geth will be quickly removed from your rapidly graying hair. There's no way she'll tolerate keeping it on board."

"I hope you're right." Miranda pointed to the messenger box her screen. "We're about to find out. Shepard's on his way."

Garrus settled into the couch cushions and closed his eyes. "See? Not even an hour."

Miranda's door hissed open and Shepard walked in. He stopped in front of Miranda's desk, but looked over at Garrus. "No, please. Don't get up."

"Wasn't going to. Say, what are the chances of me getting one of these couches moved up to the Battery?"

"Talk to the XO."

"Forget it," Miranda crossed her arms. "You lie down on the job enough as it is."

"I'd sit if I could but I don't even have a chair up there. Shepard, I want to lodge a complaint. This rampant discrimination against aliens is intolerable."

"You're on a Cerberus ship, buddy. What do you expect? Be glad you have air."

Miranda gritted her teeth. "Can we get back on track here, please? We need to talk about what we're going to do with the geth."

Shepard nodded. "We're keeping it."

Garrus sat upright. "What?"

Miranda slumped forward and cradled her head in her hands. "You  _are_  indoctrinated."

"No, I'm not. But Legion's staying. That's final."

"Legion?"

"The geth."

Miranda looked like she was experiencing the worst headache imaginable as she massaged her temples. "You  _named_  it?"

"Well, EDI did. That's not important. What is important is what Legion told me about the geth. The majority of the geth population, if you can call it that, rejected the alliance with the reapers outright. Every hostile encounter, Eden Prime, Ilos, the Citadel have all been with a splinter faction. The rest don't want to fight. Not us, not the Council, not even the quarians anymore. As a matter of fact, they want to help us." Garrus and Miranda shared the same confused, stunned expression. Shepard didn't wait for them to collect their thoughts. "Look, I don't know if it's true or not but we need to find out. This could be a game changer. We can't give this platform away, to the Migrant Fleet or Cerberus, or anyone else."

"Commander..."

"I've made the decision, Miranda." Shepard started to pace. "Toward that end, I realize keeping the geth on board is going to raise concerns among some of the crew."

"Some?" Miranda flipped one of her holos around so Shepard could see. "Over one hundred emails on the subject. Bear in mind there we only have a complement of twenty-"

"I know," Shepard said. "I've seen them. That's why I'm going to need your help on this. It's not going to be greeted with enthusiasm out there."

"In here, either," Garrus said.

Miranda stood. "Shepard, we need to discuss this before making any rash decisions. The regular crew is not going to take this well, and that's bad enough. But consider Tali. She controls power, propulsion, life support-"

"Let me worry about Tali," Shepard said. "She needs to hear this more than anyone. This could change everything for the quarians."

Garrus shook his head. "Except for the ninety-eight percent of the them the geth wiped out. Nothing will change that for them."

Shepard glared at him. His diction was forceful and precise. "I have made the decision. Now, first off... When talking about the geth we have on board, it's longer 'the geth,' it's Legion. If we call it by name, the crew will start doing it. They'll follow our lead. But if we show fear, they will too."

"Maybe we should," Miranda interjected.

"Second," Shepard's irritation was building. "Depending on how conversations go with Legion, I'm going to want to increase the crew's exposure to it. That means letting it out of the AI Core from time to time-"

Miranda couldn't hold back. "Shepard!"

"-under supervision, and under EDI's constant watch. Legion has already agreed not to interface with any system on  _Normandy_  without specific instructions to do so. I apologize ahead of time, Miranda, but your mailbox is going to bear the brunt. And I need you to run interference for me with the Illusive Man. I'll brief him and the crew in detail once I have more information."

The XO gave Garrus one last plaintive look and got only a sympathetic shrug from him. She slumped once more into her chair.

"Garrus," Shepard turned to face the turian. "As soon as possible, I want you to work up a plan to integrate Legion into the squad."

Garrus blinked. "I'm sorry, say that again?"

"Put Legion in the rotation. We need to evaluate its capabilities. I know it's handy with a sniper rifle, but we need to find out what other skills it has. Sensor and targeting capability, reaction times, mobility, the works. I'm going to have Joker find a spot on our way to our next destination where we can get some live fire time in the field somewhere, to really see what it can do."

"You can't be serious."

Shepard crossed his arms. "I'm getting a little tired of my senior officers questioning my orders. Yes, I'm serious. Draft up a basic skills test, put together some drills covering our basic tactics and have it to me by the end of the day. And I'll need a couple volunteers," Shepard pointed at Garrus and Miranda, "to help me run Legion through the evaluation. Now, the words I'm waiting to hear from both of you are ' _yes, sir.'_ "

"Commander," Miranda said, drawing a glare from Shepard. "before we allow ourselves to become distracted, it's my duty to remind you that we have also acquired the reaper IFF, which was our actual mission objective. It's imperative that we get any data and all of Mordin's research to our labs as soon as possible. I feel I should be focusing the majority of my attention there."

Shepard stared as if trying to determine if his XO was bullshitting him or not. Even if she was, it was a sound argument. "Okay. You're off the hook. Coordinate with Mordin on the IFF. Garrus? Looks like you need another volunteer to be your assistant. Take your pick from the squad, though just between you and me? I wouldn't ask Tali. What do you say?"

"Yes, sir." Garrus now looked like he was nursing a headache of the same intensity of Miranda's. "I'll have a draft by the end of third shift."

Shepard smiled as he reached out and clapped Garrus on the shoulder. "Atta-boy. It's that can-do spirit that keeps this ship going. Any questions? No?" He answered before they could ask. "Good. If you'll excuse me, I'm going to go chat with our newest crew member some more. Pop quiz: what's its name, again?"

"Legion," replied his sullen chorus.

"Ah, there it is," Shepard said as he walked out the door. "That can-do spirit. I love it. Carry on."

Even though she was invisible, Kasumi took an involuntary step back as Shepard passed on his way out. She'd seen him aggravated before, but never to the point to where he snapped at his subordinates.  _This geth thing is really getting to him,_  she thought,  _even more than everybody else._   _And it's spilling down on all of us._ Strangely, though, Kasumi found comfort in Shepard's evident discomfort. Someone who was indoctrinated wouldn't be bothered by their own behavior.

Garrus sat on the couch, his mouth agape. "What the hell just happened?"

"Just so you know," Miranda said as she typed on her holo screen. "I  _am_ the type of person who says I told you so."

Garrus stood and started pacing. "He wants me to put a geth in the squad? No one's going to want to have that thing watching their backs. Including me."

Miranda kept typing. "These are what I like to refer to as a 'Squad Leader Problems.' I'm curious. Are you going list Legion as equipment or personnel on your Table of Organization? But don't worry about it. I'm sure the Tali Factor will operate in your favor. I can't wait to see how you handle that one."

Garrus stopped, frozen, his eyes closed. So far, the Tali Factor had not worked in anyone's favor...

Miranda stopped typing and leaned back in her chair. "We'll get it sorted out. But right now I do need to coordinate with Mordin on the IFF. You coming by later?"

"Of course. I'd never miss date night."

"Good," Miranda said and went back to work.

"I'll bring a trimmer," Garrus said as he walked out the door, with Kasumi right behind him. "We can do your hair."

Miranda's voice faded as the door shut behind them. "You touch my hair, you die!"

Garrus took a few steps and halted suddenly. Kasumi wavered on her toes, extending her arms to the side to keep from running into him. The turian's shoulders drooped, along with his head. He didn't move for several seconds. Did he somehow sense her presence? Kasumi couldn't see his expression, but she could hear the exhaustion in his voice as he muttered a single word.

"Fuck." He looked about to see if anyone heard it. Fortunately, the galley and connecting corridors were still clear, and the only witness wasn't about to comment. He shook his head and walked toward his hiding place in the Forward Battery, lost in thought.

His shadow did not follow, lost in thoughts of her own.


	5. Taking 1,183 for the Team

_Normandy_ was no longer a happy ship.

Kasumi sat alone in the mess. Only Mess Sergeant Gardner remained in the galley, scrubbing down his prep area after the last meal.  It was the start of third shift, "evening" for her and most of the squad, and someone was always hanging around grabbing a late meal or looking to play cards or just shoot the breeze. But not tonight, after Commander Shepard addressed the crew at dinner.

Everybody knew about the geth found on the reaper, so that wasn't a surprise. What got jaws dropping was the announcement it was going to remain aboard as a guest instead of to the scrap heap. Having heard a sneak preview earlier in Miranda's quarters, Kasumi had to fake astonishment, but for her shipmates it was no act. Shepard had invited a geth to stay on the ship permanently.

When he tried to explain that not all geth were hostile, everybody just stared; at Shepard, at the deck, at each other. Their eyes asked the same silent question:  _are you hearing this, too?_ One voice finally spoke up.

It was Gabriella Daniels, from Engineering. She loved her captain as much as the rest of her shipmates, but her expression was pure disgust. "How could you do this to the Chief, sir?" Next to her stood Ken Donnelly, his chest puffed out, arms crossed, the same exact look on his face. Tali was nowhere to be seen. Rumor had it she hadn't spoken to Shepard since the reactivation of the geth.

Miranda gave Gabby a stern look. "Daniels..."

Shepard held up a hand to Miranda. "Gabby, I know how crazy this sounds, but-"

"You're supposed to have her back, sir," Gabby teared up, her voice full of disappointment. Gabby and Ken would lay down on a hot reactor for Tali if she asked, and she for them. "I mean of all the people..."

It was Shepard's turn to stare at the deck. "I know it's hard to accept right now, but I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it was important. Especially for Tali. If what Legion has been telling me is true, it changes everything we know about the geth."

"If a  _geth_  is telling the truth," Ken said. "You taking its word over Tali's, sir?"

"I'm not taking anyone's word on anything," Shepard said. "We have to find out. The only way to do that is to listen to what it has to say." The woosh of the ventilation system filled the air left silent by almost twenty people. "My door is open for anyone with concerns, and I want to hear them. But the decision stands. Legion is staying. So, if there are no more questions..." The silence continued. He gave Miranda a nod.

Miranda stepped forward. "Crew dismissed."

 _Normandy's_  crew filed silently from the compartment. The words would come later, as they always did, as whispers behind closed hatches and private chat windows. Those who had been eating left half-empty trays and cups on the table, leaving the command staff in the mess with a mess.

Shepard sighed and waved Garrus and Miranda toward Miranda's office. Apparently, the day wasn't over for them. The two humans and turian walked past Kasumi's table. Shepard's eyes flicked to Kasumi as he passed her table, and they locked for the briefest of moments. She gave what she hoped was an understanding smile. Miranda's door opened, then sealed shut, and Kasumi was alone at an empty table full of half eaten food.

She stood and gathered up utensils onto a single tray, then stacked the trays under the loaded one and carried them to the kitchen. Again, with no regular duties on the ship, she tried to help out where she could. Gardner looked up as she approached and reached out to take the trays from her. "Thanks, Kasumi," he said. "Appreciate it."

"Well that was a bit of a shocker, wasn't it?" Kasumi asked.

"You're telling me," Gardner said. "What the hell is Shepard thinking?"

Kasumi shrugged and watched Gardner scrape the dishes into the food recycler.  _There's tomorrow's casserole,_ she thought. "Sounds like he thinks the geth aren't all bad."

Gardner slumped against the counter and stared through the infirmary windows not ten meters away. In an effort to show he trusted Legion, Shepard had relieved the armed guards from the AI Core hatch. "What if he's wrong? I mean, what am I supposed to do if it comes out here? Whack it with a frying pan?"

Kasumi sighed. The  _Normandy_  crew was one of the best in the galaxy, but when it came down to it, most of them were technicians, not soldiers. They were scared and fear was one of the most infectious contagions in the universe. Lacking an answer, there was the one proverbial, tried and true best medicine. She leaned forward so Gardner couldn't miss the smile on her face. "Serve it your corned beef hash. That'll keep any sentient being at bay."

Gardner nodded absently to himself. It took a second or two for Kasumi's words to register. "Hey!"

"I mean, If it's going to stay on the ship it should have to take its chances like the rest of us."

Gardner pointed to the aft corridor. "Okay, missy. Out! The kitchen's closed to you forever. Scram. Get outta here."

"Aww, Rupert, don't be like that. Who's gonna fill the salt shakers if you kick me out? Tell you what, I'll finish clearing the tables if you let me keep the tips."

Gardner rolled his eyes and smiled. Banishment never lasted more than a few seconds. "Deal. Mess privileges restored."

"Now, I didn't ask for that," Kasumi said, which got Gardner laughing again. She turned around to make another sweep through the mess hall. She found herself facing the infirmary windows, with the sealed hatch to the AI Core beyond. Here it was, only day one. The geth hadn't even made a public appearance and the ship felt like it was falling apart.

How many jokes would she have to crack to get everybody through day two?

* * *

The "daily squad meeting" was daily in name only. It happened every few days at most, usually right before a mission. Otherwise, it consisted of a cancellation in everyone's message queue along with a few bullet points from Vakarian and Shepard. If  _that_  was too extravagant, all they got was hastily scribbled "No Meeting" on the whiteboard in the galley, which was always humorously defaced by passers by. It became an art form.

But after Shepard's announcement, select members of the squad got a personal invite from Garrus to meet in the galley first thing in the morning with the friendly little annotation of  _mandatory._ Considering the likely subject, it was no surprise to Kasumi that Tali was not on the distribution list.

While most of the squad grumbled at getting up for yet another meeting, Kasumi actually enjoyed them when they happened. Early mornings were a great time to get a read on what people were really thinking, when the mouth free to run at full speed while the brain was still half asleep. Plus, as boring as the squad meeting could be, it was guaranteed social interaction. It beat waiting in the lounge for someone to come in and talk to her.

The smell of various coffees and teas filled the mess as Thane, Samara, Grunt, Zaeed, Jack and Jacob sipped from their cups at the aft table. Kasumi, of course, "randomly" scored a seat next to Jacob. As a disgustingly typical morning person, Garrus was bright and pleasant regardless of the rest of the squad's tendency toward grumpiness. Given what he was about to announce, Kasumi thought, his composure was remarkable.

"Alright everyone," Garrus said.. "As you all know we have a special guest with us on the ship, which means I have a  _very_ special opportunity for one lucky member of the team."

"Skip the sunrise, Vakarian," Zaeed said with a yawn. "Opportunity for what?"

Jacob grunted. "Target practice, hopefully."

That got a round of laughter from the table. Everybody knew what was coming. They were just waiting for Garrus to say it. "Yes, Jacob. Target practice, but not in the way you're thinking. Shepard wants to evaluate Legion's skills in the field-"

Jack scowled. "Who the fuck is Legion?"

"The geth," Garrus said. "I know you were at the briefing last night, Jack. I saw you there."

Jack buried her face in her arms. "Well I'm here, too, but that doesn't mean I'm listening."

"Fine, I'll make this quick. Shepard and I are going to be running some evaluations on the geth. We're looking for a volunteer to help out."

"A volunteer?" Jacob busted out the air quotes. "Or a  _volunteer?"_

"Shepard appreciates that personal feelings may prevent some of you from choosing to participate. It's not an order."

Jacob leaned back in his chair. He was always the first to step forward when Shepard asked for help, but not now. "You can count me out, then."

Jack didn't lift her head so her response was muffled a bit. "Yeah, fuck that."

Everyone laughed again, except for Thane and Samara. They didn't participate, but they didn't volunteer, either, and their expressions indicated they weren't going to.

"I'll do it," Grunt said. A wide, toothy grin split his face. "I've always wanted to see how disruptor ammo would work in my Claymore."

"See now," Jacob's expression brightened. "That's a valuable, real-world test. Put that on the agenda, I guarantee you all kinds of volunteers."

Garrus waited for the latest round of laughter to subside.

Thane leaned forward, his hands interlaced in front of him. "General animosity toward the geth aside, I feel there is a more important facet of this situation that is being overlooked."

"Such as?" Garrus asked.

"I'm surprised I have to tell you. My relationship with Tali'Zorah is not as close as some, but she is a senior member of the crew and a trusted member of this squad. She has fought by my side many times in our travels together. There are few in the galaxy I place my confidence. She is one of them. I find Shepard's intention to integrate the geth into the team disconcerting. She might perceive that Shepard is asking us to choose the geth over her. Intentional or not, that is how she will take it."

"Agreed," Samara said. "This is a very personal issue for her. I can't see how if we participate in these exercises how we can avoid being perceived as taking sides, or devaluing the suffering experienced by Tali and her people."

Jacob glared at Garrus. "I've been saying that since we brought the damn thing aboard. And I can't for the life of me figure out why you're going along with it. You're her best friend!"

Kasumi watched Garrus from the corner of her eye. He just stared at the table top. Unlike the others, she knew he had no choice.  Through no fault of his own, poor Garrus was caught between his two closest friends. Shame on Shepard for putting Garrus in that spot. Making Garrus give an order that he didn't agree with was bad enough. But it was going to kill Tali, and she would blame him.

One thing was certain. The longer it dragged out, the worse it was going to get. Kasumi pushed her hand in the air. "I'm your girl." All eyes turned to her and he looked around so everyone could see the smile on her face, as happy as if they had just been discussing their favorite movies. "Look, if it turns on us, we blow it to scrap. or, tshape it's in, it might burn out thirty seconds after we turn it loose. This whole fuss might be for nothing. Let's just get it done. Besides, I think we all know where this is coming from. Shepard's calling in a marker here. He's being sneaky about it, but that's what it amounts to. I don't know about the rest of you, but I owe him one. A big one."

Around the table, the members of the squads all briefly retreated into memory. It stopped Tali from going rogue the day before, and worked on the rest of the squad now. Even Jack was quiet. Kasumi shrugged. "Anyway, I'm the newest face on the ship so Tali will hate me the least for it, whatever happens. Doncha think? So put me in, Coach, and let's adjourn this sucker."

"Done," Garrus said. "We disembark at 1600. As for the rest of you, we're not expecting any action for the next forty eight hours, but just in case... it wouldn't hurt to be in a heightened state of alert starting around, oh say, 1600. That's all I have. You're free to go. Kasumi, if I could have a moment?"

They stood and started to walk away from the table. Kasumi registered silent nods of approval from Thane and Samara, which always felt nice, but actually got a pat on the back from Jacob as he passed. "Atta girl. Good luck out there."

"More like  _goodbye_ ," Jack said as she passed. "Can I have your room?"

"No you may not," Kasumi said. "It goes to Zaeed since he's my elder. It's a Japanese thing."

Zaeed grunted as he stood. "Great. A bunch of goddamn sad sacks traipsing through my room at all hours, whinging about their miserable lives and expecting to drink  _my_  alcohol. Forget it."

"Well I'm calling dibs," Jack said and followed Zaeed out. "You're all my witnesses."

Soon, only Garrus remained at the table. "Thank you, Kasumi."

Kasumi grinned. "I told you I was desperate for work."

That got a chuckle from the turian. "Probably not what you had in mind, is it? We'll assemble at 1530 to draw gear in the armory. I assume you know how to get there. Is there anything you need before we go?"

"Oh, I don't know. A bubble bath, followed by a full body massage by a well-oiled muscular fellow proficient in peeling grapes...?"

Garrus laughed again, with a glance toward the corridor where Jacob had departed. "I'll see what I can do. But what I'm really asking is are you sure you're comfortable with this?"

"I think so," Kasumi. Was she? She'd just signed up for a live fire training exercise with a murderbot whose kind had killed billions. Ordinarily, she would have said so out loud, just for comedic effect, but that kind of joke had a tendency to backfire at the worst times. "Legion and I have already met. This'll be our second date."

"Right. See you in the armory at 1530. Let me know if you need anything."

Kasumi waved and Garrus marched toward his favorite hideout in the Battery. Once again, Kasumi was left alone in the mess with a bunch of empty coffee mugs on the table.  _Honestly,_  she thought as she collected them.  _These people don't know how to clean up after themselves._

Her task complete, she looked about the empty room. What now? She had just over six hours to kill before they departed to take the geth for a test drive. She slept well the night before, as usual, and had only been up for an hour or so, so a nap was out. There was always a chance someone coming off shift might want a drink, and she still had a book to finish, so she started back to the lounge. If no one showed, there was always Plan B, yet another unauthorized tour of the ship. Idle hands, after all, were the devil's tools. Who knows, maybe she'd go and see what the geth was up to...

She activated her omnitool. Shepard's status was marked  _busy_  as usual, but that didn't keep him from responding to messages.  _Hey Shep,_  she typed.  _Looks like I'm going with you and Garrus to take Legion for a test drive. Think it would be okay if I went in and introduced myself?_

 _Great idea,_  came Shepard's reply.  _I'll clear you through with EDI. Thanks, Kasumi!_

 _My pleasure,_  Kasumi replied. She sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "Three... two... one..."

Her omnitool buzzed with another message from Shepard.  _Don't pick his pockets. We're trying to make a good impression._

"It gets funnier every time," Kasumi muttered, but typed  _ha ha._ She glanced back to the lounge where her book and couch were waiting for her. Her weapons were locked in the armory under Jacob's supervision. Maybe she should see if she could check one out, just in case her non-lethal tool set was no good against geth hardware. Maybe Jacob could even volunteer to come down with her, to watch her back? Of course, that would require management approval, which would require who knows how much time and possibly involve the assembly of a team, maybe even cause the calling of another dreaded meeting...

 _Miss Goto, your feet seem to be frozen to the floor..._ Kasumi closed her eyes and tried drown out that stupid voice in her head, even though that voice was often her smarter self.  _No, t_ _hat's not snow you stepped in. You jumped into this big pile of shit on your own. Don't go tracking it onto other people's carpets. This is your problem, now.  
_

Kasumi sighed and turned back to the AI Core. "Let's do this."


	6. Putting the Norm in Normandy

Of all the compartments on  _Normandy,_ the AI Core was the only remaining mystery to Kasumi. As EDI's central point of access, it was one of the most secure areas on the ship. The AI's defenses were strongest there, but it was a prison as much as it was a fortress. After several unfortunate AI blunders, Cerberus wasn't taking any chances with EDI and the myriad of sensors and alarms, physical as well as electronic, were designed to keep her systems isolated and under control.

Regardless of why, finally gaining access to EDI's room with Shepard's permission was a nice little bonus of the whole geth situation. Kasumi could now record and analyze the room's defenses for future excursions, filling in one last piece of the ship's puzzle. But talking to the geth had to done first since she opened her big mouth and volunteered to do it.

The geth platform was posed at far end of the empty AI Core like one of the stolen artefacts on display in Donovan Hock's vault. It stood in shadow, arms at its side, still as a mannequin. Some genius had the brilliant idea to hang a red light over the workbench at the Core's far end, The hellish glow shone through the gaping hole in the geth's chest plate in stark contrast to the dazzling blue-white spotlight where its face should be.

_Ten out of ten for presentation,_  Kasumi thought as she approached.  _Why not play the sounds of tortured souls moaning in the background to really sell it?_

The geth didn't seem to acknowledge her presence. Did it see her? Did it know she was there? Kasumi veered her course ever so slightly to the left as she approached. The geth's unblinking eye tracked her, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand beneath her cowl. It was one thing to read about the geth uprising on Rannoch, or see vids of their invasion on Eden Prime and the Citadel, but another to stand in the light of its unblinking eye. As her own eyes adjusted in the light, she could make out spall marks and smaller holes all over the geth's armor. How many people had this geth killed collecting them?

Human and geth stared at each other in silence. Kasumi was obviously going to have to make the first move. She gave a slight wave. "Uh, hi. Kasumi Goto. Nice to meet you." As before, the machine did not move or make a sound. "Um, yeah, so we're going to be working together today, and, uh, I just wanted to come by and introduce myself."

Nothing. How did someone break the ice with a geth? "I don't know if you remember or not, but we met on the reaper. You took out a husk that was creeping up on me. Great shot, by the way. Just wanted to say thanks."

Still nothing.

"You don't talk much, do you?" Kasumi cleared her throat and looked around the room, struggling to come up with a topic for conversation. She spotted one of EDI's ubiquitous terminals by the server racks on the side wall. "So, EDI? What do you think of your new roommate? You two getting along?"

EDI's sphere of blue dots materialized over the terminal. "Other than sporadic attempts to probe my network, we have shared very little interaction."

"Really? I would have thought it would have been nice to have someone else to talk to, you know, on a more technological level."

"Other than conversing with Commander Shepard, it has not attempted communication at all."

"Interesting." Kasumi turned back to the geth. "Maybe he's shy. We don't make you nervous, do we, Legion?"

The machine spoke with a harsh, mechanical buzz. "We find no references to Kasumi-Goto in our current dataset."

Kasumi had to think for a moment about what she'd heard. "Beg your pardon?"

"We have conducted a search of all available organic data sources. There are no references to any entity identified Kasumi-Goto that correspond to your physical attributes."

EDI's avatar pulsed. "Legion is saying there is no record of you on the extranet or any other accessible resource."

"Correct," Legion said. "This does not follow observed organic norms."

Kasumi shrugged. If she played it off, maybe the geth would drop it. "Well, I'm not big on social media."

The bright white light shining from Legion's face felt like an interrogator's spotlight. "The absence of referential information indicates the deliberate alteration or deletion of data."

Whether the bot knew it or not, it was one-hundred percent correct. Kasumi went to great lengths not to leave electronic footprints anywhere she went, and whatever references did come up pointed to completely different people. Until now, no one ever called her on it. The geth had done it within seconds of meeting her.

Ordinarily, this would have been enough for Kasumi to walk away but on the  _Normandy_ , retreat wasn't that simple. She was sure she could trust Shepard with her identity, and while the Illusive Man was creepy he was a fanatic when it came to information security. But would a geth respect that? This was a walking, talking database that could interface with devce with an open network port. With whom or what would it share what it would undoubtedly discover about her? "I wouldn't worry about that. I'm just sort of a private person."

The plates around the geth's head expanded and contracted. "Data integrity is essential for the formation of consensus. Corruption of data results in the formation of invalid conclusions, rendering consensus impossible. The intentional alteration or deletion of data a hostile act. Is your intention to deceive us?"

"Wait," Kasumi blinked. "You're asking if I'm lying to you and expecting me to tell you the truth?"

"Yes."

"You're kind of new to this, aren't you?"

"Our experience with organic communication is limited. However, observation of organic behavior indicates that deception between organics is common, and in some cases, normal. Is this an accurate assessment?"

"That's... actually pretty accurate, yeah."

"This unit has a query."

Kasumi waited for a few seconds. Was the geth waiting for permission to speak? "Um, okay?"

"If deception by organics is a common occurrence, how can we determine if you are presenting accurate information?"

Kasumi wasn't sure of what her first exchange with the geth was going to be like, but she was pretty sure an ethics lesson wasn't anywhere on the list. And of all the people the geth could have asked about it, it had to be her. "Wow, uh... That's a complicated question. I guess it's something you have to learn. And learn it the hard way, unfortunately. Mostly, it comes from the gut. Instinct."

"Instinct is biological coding that allows information about external stimuli to be passed from one organic generation to the next. Geth do not possess instincts."

"Right. Um, yeah, you know, maybe EDI could help you out with this. She's got a ton experience dealing with us silly organics, don't you EDI? You're a pretty good judge of character, I think. How do you know if one of us is telling the truth or not?"

EDI's avatar pulsed with blue light. "Without an established physiological baseline and psychological profile, an individual's honesty is difficult to ascertain in isolation. The propensity to lie varies from person to person in a given situation. Most of the time, verification by other trusted sources is ideal for determining someone's honesty."

"Perfect," Kasumi said. "There you go, Legion. If you're not sure someone is telling the truth, check with someone else you can trust."

Legion looked between EDI and Kasumi. "How can we judge the veracity of the initial source of information when no secondary source has been classified as reliable?"

"That's a toughie," Kasumi said. "You just have to take a chance. Make a judgement call. Like I said, instinct."

"This procedure is inefficient, error-prone, and is susceptible to manipulation."

"Oh, you don't know the half of it," Kasumi said. "Unfortunately, it's the only procedure we've got."

Legion's lens zoomed in on Kasumi. "We have presented our concerns about the absence of referential data related to Goto-Kasumi to Shepard-Commander. We are awaiting his response."

"Woah," Kasumi held up a hand. "Did you just check up on me?"

"Yes. Was this not your recommendation?"

Kasumi let her hand drop.  _He's got you there_.  _Can't get mad at him for doing what you told him to do._ And unlike most people, ironically, Legion had been honest about it.

"Shepard-Commander indicates the absence of personal data is not cause for alarm as it is a necessary aspect of your role in the  _Normandy_  collective as an infiltration specialist."

Kasumi relaxed. Of course Shep had her back. His answer seemed to satisfy Legion, but she really wanted the geth's attention on someone else. Shepard just volunteered whether he knew it or not. "So, you consider Shepard to be trustworthy, do you?"

"We do."

"How'd you come to that conclusion?"

There was a lengthy pause from the geth and its facial plates twitched again. "No data available."

"Oh,  _now_  look who's being coy about their personal details?" Kasumi still pondered a hasty retreat, but curiosity was getting the best of her. "I have to say as far as baselines for trust go, Shep's a good one. His word's pretty solid. And I think we just found an answer to your earlier question. The more people who vouch for someone's honesty, the more reliable they tend to be. I think you'll find a lot of people trust Shepard. Learn to keep track of that and you should be okay."

"Essentially, we should seek consensus amongst organics as to the reliability of other organics?"

"That's a good way to put it."

"Understood. But you have not answered our original query."

"Which query was that?"

Once again, the geth's bright spotlight of an eye shone directly in Kasumi's face. "Are you lying to us?"

_Crap,_  Kasumi thought.  _He's not going to let that go._ But the geth wasn't trying to bust her, it was just trying to establish another baseline for trust in a place where it didn't have too many friends. Unfortunately, it was looking for honesty from someone whose career depended on deception. She reached out and patted the geth's shoulder. "Listen, ol' buddy, I'm gonna let you in on a dirty little organic secret. Anyone who tells you they'll never lie to you, is lying to you."

Once again, the plates around the geth's face did a funny little dance. "We do not understand."

Kasumi sighed and walked past the geth to sit on the platform at the end of the compartment. She patted the spot next to her. "Look, we've got some time before we go on our little field trip. Have a seat and Auntie Kasumi will try to explain."

* * *

"How can I make this any clearer," Garrus asked Shepard. "You're wrong."

"Am not," Shepard countered.

Garrus closed his eyes and tilted his head back to the sky, a sure sign conflict was brewing.  _"Are too."_

Kasumi sighed and gazed across the dusty red sea of rocks and dunes around them. The training mission started off with a lot of talk, but that was to be expected. The shuttle flight down consisted of one long, drawn out lecture from Shepard about training parameters and expectations of the team while on the planet. Military minds fascinated Kasumi. They could be rigid and uncompromising, but the best soldiers knew how to adapt as well as plan, two capabilities Kasumi could appreciate. But good grief could Shepard drone on about sectors and areas of operations and fields of fire and orders of battle and hand signals and intervals and comm frequencies and on and on and on...

At least on the shuttle, Shepard had the spotlight to himself. Once on the planet, though, Garrus Vakarian took center stage, and every task that should have taken two minutes ended up taking ten as he and Shepard had to turn each and lesson into a contest over who knew the most about the least interesting topics. If Garrus and Miranda shared a fetish for organization, Shepard and Garrus had a thing for weapons and tactics. They argued about it like an old married couple.

Each time, Kasumi would seek out the most sarcastic place to sit and pointedly wait out their spat. At first she called as much attention to herself in the most passive-aggressive way possible, with snide remarks and quips aimed at both of them. But even that got old after the first hour, so she just decided to sit and wait it out. Fortunately, she stored a complete library of digital books in her omnitool. She might just get through all of them by the time the day was over.

And Legion was no fun. The geth would stand wherever it happened to stop when the next argument erupted, watching with its flaps doing funny little dances around its head as it listened as it awaited its next instruction. Eventually, Shepard and Garrus would remember the reason they came to the planet in the first place and get back to business.

But this time, Garrus and Shepard weren't stopping. Legion turned away from the pair and walked over to where Kasumi sat on her rocky stool.

"Goto-Kasumi," it said over a private comm channel. "We do not understand. Why is Vakarian-Garrus attempting to incite rebellion against Shepard-Commander?"

Kasumi digitally bookmarked her stopping point in her novel. Agatha Christie would have to wait. "They're flirting."

Legion looked back to Shepard and Garrus, still embroiled in some kind of debate on zeroing sniper rifles. It turned back to Kasumi. "We do not understand."

"Just a joke, Legion. It's not rebellion. It's competition. Everything's a contest with those two.  _Everything._  One time at dinner, they were debating the best way to avoid an ambush on the way to the loo from the cockpit. That started as a joke, too, but twenty minutes later they were chasing each other throughout the ship, shooting each other and the crew with rubber band guns and paper wad grenades."

Kasumi cleared her throat. "Now, to be fair, alcohol was factor, and both Garrus and Shepard had done a fair share of recruiting into their personal armies. Things get kinda fuzzy at that point. No one really remembers much about that night and apparently Shepard classified the security logs. The only thing we know for sure is that Miranda got  _really_  pissed when Shepard declared her cabin enemy territory and led an assault to take it at three o'clock in the morning. Rumor has it that she's still finding rubber bands in her quarters to this day."

The geth stared at her again. "We do not understand."

"Hey, Kasumi, Legion?" Shepard called to them. "Over here."

"I'll explain later," Kasumi said and motioned Legion to follow her.

"Slight change of plans," Shepard said. "We're going to stay here for a few more minutes before moving on to the next station."

"That's wonderful news," Kasumi said, full of blatantly false exuberance. "It's such a lovely spot. Might I fetch the blanket and picnic basket from the shuttle?"

"Yeah, do that," Shepard said absently. "Legion, we've got another scenario for you. We've sent some remote targets just over two klicks out to our south. We were going to to use them for close combat drills, but it just dawned on us-"

"Dawned on me," Garrus interjected.

"-that we haven't really put your sniping capability to the test yet. You showed you were a pretty good shot on the reaper. Let's see how you do at range."

Legion reached behind its back for the Widow rifle attached to its mount. It expanded into firing configuration, nearly doubling in length. "Acknowledged, Shepard-Commander."

"Okay, there are ten targets total, five static, five mobile..."

Kasumi sighed and sat back down on her rocky perch and fired up her omnitool. Garrus and Shepard got down on their bellies on the dusty red ground, extending the bipods on their rifles. Legion continued to stand. Kasumi made it three paragraphs before Shepard called out her name.

"Kasumi, you want to play?"

"No thanks," Kasumi didn't look up from her book. "Someone has to cover you from the rear."

"Atta girl. Good thinking. Okay, everybody have the targets in sight?"

"Eight centimeters," Garrus said. "Your first shot will miss approximately eight centimeters to the left."

Shepard pulled his eye away from the scope to look at Garrus. "We taking bets here?"

"I'll take your money. Fifty credits?"

"Each target?"

"Fine."

"Fine. Make it a hundred."

"FINE."

Legion looked back at Kasumi. "We do not understand."

"I'll explain later," Kasumi replied with a tired wave of her hand. In the planet's thin atmosphere, the crack of the trio's rifles sounded somewhat muffled. Unfazed, Kasumi went back to finding out who killed Linnet Ridgeway. A short time later, the firing stopped.

"Well," Garrus climbed to his feet. "Let's see. That's ten for me and... nine for you, Commander. What happened?"

Shepard stayed on the ground and casually brushed the omnipresent dust from his rifle.

Garrus shouldered his rifle and faced the geth. "Oh, but I am party to this wager so we should probably get an impartial opinion. Legion, what do you make of the results?"

Legion answered immediately. "Vakarian-Garrus successfully engaged ten targets, for a hit rate of one hundred percent. This unit also successfully engaged ten, for one hundred percent. Shepard-Commander hit nine out of ten targets, for ninety percent."

"Ninety percent," Garrus repeated. "Shame about that first shot. Looked like you hooked it by about, oh, I don't know,  _eight centimeters._  Legion? Is that right? Eight centimeters?"

"Shepard-Commander's first round impacted seventy-nine millimeters left of center of the target."

"Damn it," Garrus shook his head. "Off by a millimeter. I'll blame wind and heat convection for that. You can only account for so many variables."

Shepard collapsed his rifle to travel configuration and stood. "Obviously, the planet's rotation causes drift at this distance. Especially firing perpendicular to the spin like that. I was just trying to demonstrate the importance of properly calibrating your sights to the local environment at extreme range. So, Legion? Make sure you do that as part of your preparation before any deployment. Environmental data is always sent along as part of any briefing. It's important that you look at it. If you have any questions, just ask and we'll make sure your data is up to date. Got it?"

"Understood, Shepard-Commander."

"Fantastic advice," Garrus rolled his eyes. "I wish I'd thought of it."

"Good. Let's gather up our gear and move on to the next station."

Kasumi bookmarked her page again and pushed up from her rock but it turned out to be a futile gesture when instead of moving on, Garrus stayed put.

"So you're saying you missed that first shot on purpose," Garrus said.

Shepard shrugged. "I was proving a point."

"A point Legion had already grasped, obviously."

"We're here to find out where the performance gaps are, aren't we?"

"And we just found one. You know, any weapon that touches your hand transforms into a battle rifle. Why don't you didn't ask Jacob to do a full-auto mod on that thing."

"Oh," Shepard said and unslung his rifle again. "You don't think I can match you, Coriolis-boy?"

"Let's just say no amount of calibration can compensate for the spin you put on your performance."

"Oh brother," Kasumi muttered to herself and sat back down on her rock.

Shepard lay back on the ground. "Ten shots. At a hundred per hit. And I'm talking bullseyes."

"Fine," Garrus settled on the ground behind his own rifle. "Just remember, you're already down a hundred."

"Fine. You take the first shot. Double or nothing you choke it."

"Fine."

"FINE."

Once again, Legion looked over to Kasumi. "We do not understand. Which of our attributes is Shepard-Commander and Vakarian-Garrus evaluating with this exercise?"

Kasumi shook her head. "Patience." All that got from the geth was another rearrangement of its facial plates. She waved her hand in an  _I'll explain later_  fashion. She'd seen this particular drama unfold many times during her short stint on the  _Normandy_. If Legion was going to survive in the squad, it would have to learn what counted as normal.

_In the mean time,_  she thought as she got comfortable on her stony perch,  _Hercule Poirot is waiting..._


	7. We Are Legion

The swollen disk of the local star sunk low on the horizon, turning the sky and the landscape a dingy orange. Kasumi's boots sunk into the fine soil and kicked up a puff of dust with each step. They were into the fourth hour of Legion's evaluation, and by the mercy of the gods they were on their way to the final exercise for the day.

Legion led the column, with Garrus and Shepard right behind studying how the geth navigated and tracked its position. As dull as it had been, Kasumi had to admit Garrus's evaluation had been very productive. Every move the geth made, every sensor output, every interaction and reaction had been carefully recorded and analyzed by the team. How Legion performed in close quarters, at long range, alone or with support, every common scenario had been played out. So far, Legion performed flawlessly, and more importantly, reliably, to every command given by Garrus or Shepard. The dreaded betrayal of a psychotic AI hell bent on destroying all organic life had yet to happen.

And now they were almost done. With every step, Kasumi's feet reminded her how ill accustomed she was to marching. For all it's cramped confines, she was ready to get back to the ship.

Shepard must have sensed her discomfort because slowed his pace and fell into step next to her. "How're you holding up?"

"Loving this ground-level tour of the planet. I'm glad we're keeping the mileage down on the shuttle by walking to it instead of having it come to us. Gotta keep its resale value up, right?"

"Talk to that guy," Shepard pointed up ahead to Garrus. "This is his agenda, not mine."

Kasumi switched her comm over to the squad frequency. "Thanks, Garrus! Can we do another lap of the planet before we go?"

 _"I can arrange that,"_ Garrus replied.

"Overruled," Shepard said quickly. "One last stop and we're done here."

"What," Kasumi said, switching back to Shepard on the private channel. "You don't want to challenge him to a foot race around the planet or something?"

"You can if you like. Let me know who wins. I'll see you back on the ship. Listen, I really appreciate everything you've done today. I know this kind of thing isn't really your forte, but you've been a big help."

"Aw, anything for the team, Shep. You know that."

"So what do you think? About Legion?"

"Well, I know this isn't a highly technical, tactical assessment but... I like him. He's like that weird, shy kid who sits alone in the back of the class and never says anything to anybody. But when you talk to him, you find out he's actually pretty cool." Kasumi would have felt bad describing anyone that way, except back in school _she_ was that shy, weird kid.

"Legion told me you two had a nice chat."

"Yeah," Kasumi shook her head. "Right after he ran a background check on me."

Shepard grinned. "Apparently, you don't exist on the extranet. Geth really don't like gaps in their data, do they?"

"You can say that again. It was like I was invisible to him. Like he knew I was there, but he couldn't see me. It really freaked him out. Wonder how he would react if I disappeared in front of him for real?"

"Actually, that's kind of why I came back here. We haven't utilized your particular talents to their fullest in these evaluations. I think it would be interesting to find out."

"Oh, I think I like where this is going."

"You know how you're always sneaking up on people and giving them heart attacks?"

"You make it sound so underhanded. I'm just trying to keep you on your toes."

"And subtly reminding all of us that you can do it whenever you want."

"That, too."

"Mmm-hmm," Shepard said. "I want you to try it on Legion. This last exercise is contact avoidance. Garrus set up a course in the ravines up ahead with drones, remote sentries, the works. The objective is the shuttle at the end. Legion's mission will be to get there without getting spotted. So far, he's been able to detect everything we've thrown at him. I want to give him something a little harder, really put those sensors to the test."

Kasumi wore a sly smile. "You want me to give him a heart attack?"

Shepard laughed. "That's the idea. See how close you can get to him during the trial without him knowing."

"See, now this sounds like fun."

"I figured you'd like it. When you spot him, don't give his position away to Garrus or me, either. We're testing ourselves, too here. We want to see how good he is."

"None of you will never know I'm there."

"Good," Shepard said. "And to sweeten the pot, if you can tap him on the shoulder before he gets to the shuttle, dinner's on me."

"Terrific. _Chez Gardner._ What a treat."

"It's Salisbury Steak night," Shepard said, as if it were. "Think you can do it?"

"Please," Kasumi said and fired up her omnitool. "When do you want to hear him scream? Any particular point in the exercise?"

"Up to you. We're not going to tell him you're coming or when. Just tag him before he gets to the shuttle."

"No problem." Kasumi pulled up her omnitool to examine the EM detection specs they'd pulled from Legion thus far. "I'll have my steak vulcanized, with the gravy sieved and the lumps served on the side."

* * *

The sun had set over the desert world, and the thin atmosphere rapidly darkened from blue to black, turning into a sea of shimmering stars. In the darkness, the tempeature temperature plunged well below freezing. Breathable air aside, Kasumi was grateful for the toasty warmth by her environment suit, but she was going to have to have to sacrifice comfort for a bit if she was truly going to disappear.

Legion was halfway through the cracks and crevasses that crisscrossed the terrain based on the position of the geth's last victim. Four of the six sentry drones Garrus had programmed to block Legion's progress had gone silent, with the closest now just under one hundred meters from the shuttle. Shepard and Garrus watched from atop the Kodiak, while Kasumi paralleled Legion's course from the left on the ridge of an escarpment.

"Just lost contact with number five now," Garrus said as another blip on their shared tactical display disappeared.

"Getting closer," Shepard said as he continued scanning, his eyes glowing from the light intensifier in his visor. "Still no visual. Kasumi?"

"Negative contact," Kasumi knelt and surveyed the craggy landscape in front of her. There were hundreds of places to hug the walls to remain unseen. That was the route Legion had taken, but If she was going to catch the geth, she would have to move fast and take the high road.

With a touch a button, she removed herself from the physical world. Like a ship going into stealth mode, her suit reflected the heat from her body inward, simultaneously matching the ambient temperature around her. Micro optics and projectors bent energy of all wavelengths all around, visual, infrared, ultraviolet, making them appear as if they'd never encountered an obstruction. Every single emission from Kasumi, organic or electronic, was now muted. Even her teammates wouldn't be able to track her now.

"Got nothing here," Shepard said, making no mention of Kasumi's disappearance from the squad net in case Legion was monitoring, which the geth certainly was. "No emissions, no movement."

"It doubled back," Garrus swept his scope back and forth, scanning for a target. "It had to. It never entered the ravine after it took out the drone. It wants us to think it's gone right, but it's going left."

"I still don't see him."

"Out of curiosity, have you ever considered eye surgery...?"

"You're gonna need facial surgery if you don't knock it off. Oh that's right, you already do..."

That wasn't perfect intel, but it was better than the fifty-fifty choice Kasumi faced otherwise. She sprinted through the dark along the ridge, her visor mapping out solid rock devoid of loose soil or other debris that could mark her passing. She vaulted across narrow gaps in the rock, glancing down just long enough to make sure she didn't overtake her quarry. Her toasty warm environment suit rapidly became a sauna. If necessary, she'd drop down into one of the stone fissures so she could vent out of sight. _Is it hot in here, or is it just me,_ she thought.

But where was Legion? There was no sign of the geth as Kasumi vaulted between the rock formations in the direction Garrus had indicated.

A text message from Legion flashed across her visor. _"Goto-Kasumi, report status."_

 _Oh-ho,_ Kasumi thought. Legion finally realized that Kasumi had dropped off its scanner, and was now trying to get her to give away her own position by transmitting. It was the oldest trick in the book. If you think someone is out there, call out their name. Many a thief had been busted by revealing their position thinking they'd been spotted when they had not.

Legion's transmission was a microburst only a few bytes long, but it had been strong enough that Kasumi's sensors were able to plot its direction. She was heading on the right course. She crouched and silently continued along the ridge to the edge and peeked over the side. Another dark crevasse greeted her, empty at the bottom.

_"_ _Goto-Kasumi,_ _respond."_

Kasumi halted. _Nice try, buddy. Not falling for it,_ she thought. Thanks to the second transmission, she had a firm location. Legion was only ten meters ahead, in the next depression. She sidestepped along the rocks to find a narrow enough place to cross.

White light blossomed from the bottom of the ravine ahead, casting sharp shadows along the rocky walls. Legion's bright headlight of a face rose over the ledge as it climbed to the surface. A glowing blue sphere made of light, the geth's combat drone shot straight into the air behind it.

"Contact," Garrus said as he watched the geth blow its position. "What the hell?"

"Alert," Legion broadcast in the clear. _"_ Contact with Goto-Kasumi lost. Biometric functions negative. Negative radio contact. Negative emissions. Executing grid search of last known location. Request allied assistance."

"Woah, Legion," Shepard said. "Wait, Kasumi's okay. Hold position. Kasumi, do you read?"

Legion halted as ordered, only a few steps away but its combat drone sailed overhead, casting the landscape in a dim blue glow. Legion's head pivoted back and forth as it continued to scan.

"Kasumi, you out there?" Shepard said again. "Come on out, show us where you are."

If Kasumi didn't respond, they might really think there was something wrong, but she was so close... With a short sprint, she sprung through the air with a flip (which again, sadly, no one saw) and landed with precision behind the geth. She reached up and touched its shoulder and deactivated her cloak. "I'm right here, Legion." She looked back at Shepard so he could see her wink at him through his scope. "Dinner's on you, Shep."

Legion spun around to face her. It produced its omnitool conducted a scan of her entire body. "Report status. We lost all biometric feeds."

"I was just being sneaky." She did a turn, then vanished, then reappeared. "See? Everything still works."

"It's okay, Legion," Shepard said. "It was part of the test. We wanted to evaluate your sensor capabilities. It needed to be a surprise."

Any other person would have probably been mad at being tricked like that, but the geth simply turned off its omni. "Acknowledged. We were unaware of Kasumi-Goto's stealth capabilities. We misinterpreted the loss of signal as an interruption of power or incapacitation. Given the atmospheric conditions of this world, an interruption of life support would result in asphyxia."

Kasumi felt a twinge of guilt as the geth's words registered. Legion blew the test because it thought she was in trouble.

Garrus rested his cheek against the butt of his rifle. "Do we want to reset and run through it again?"

"Nah," Shepard said, checking his omnitool. He cracked his neck under his armor, evidently as stiff and tired as the rest of them. "We're due back on the ship in an hour. Let's call it a day. Call in the drones and pack it in. Everybody, report back to the shuttle. We're wrapping it up here."

Lights blossomed around them as Garrus's target drones reactivated and drifted through the air back to the Kodiak. Kasumi beckoned Legion to follow her across a land bridge that would lead back to their shipmates.

Shepard waved to them from next to the shuttle. "Welcome back, you two. What do you say we get this loaded and get out of here. I owe somebody dinner."

"Acknowledged, Shepard-Commander," Legion said.

Kasumi took a bow and proceeded to help loading equipment back on the shuttle. Shepard and Garrus spent the entire time arguing about who could do the most damage in the least amount of time, sniper vs. soldier. But the geth remained silent as they prepared to head back ot the ship. What was it thinking, Kasumi wondered? Was it ashamed that it failed the exercise? Angry that the organics altered the program, tricking it into exposing itself? As a machine with a collective artificial intelligence, did any of that factor in at all? Or was it merely quiet because no one was asking it for input. 

Shepard hopped down from the shuttle and helped Legion guide a heavy-looking crate up to Garrus in the hatch. Standing they stood next to one another, their red-striped shoulders lifting in unison. Why _did_ the machine choose to repair itself with the armor of the man standing next to it?

As the shuttle lifted to the sky on its way back to the ship, Shepard and Garrus resumed their squabble over who had the best toys. Kasumi was about to fire up her omnitool to get in a few pages before they docked, when she glanced at Legion to her right. It stared at the empty wall across from it, seemingly oblivious to its surroundings.

"Thanks for looking out for me back there," Kasumi said.

Legion turned its head at the sound of her voice. She smiled at it, but it shifted its gaze back to the opposite wall where it focused its attention for the rest of the flight.


	8. And the "Least Popular" Award Goes To...

As per standard operating procedure, the return to the Normandy was followed by the inevitable debrief in the conference room with Miranda, Jacob and Shepard. As per Kasumi's SOP, she invited herself though no one else knew it.

Garrus was also there, but in plain sight, to give a quick summary of Legion's evaluation. "In spite of a few hitches," he said, "most of which were due to lack of familiarity with procedure, Legion performed the given tasks adequately, successfully coordinating with the team in each phase of the evaluation. Barring any unexpected behavior, and maybe after receiving additional instruction, it might prove useful to the squad. Maybe."

Jacob scowled. "Maybe, as long as it doesn't shoot us in the back."

"It had plenty of opportunities to do so but we all returned unscathed. Except for Shepard's pride, of course, which was left for dead on the surface of a lonely, uncharted planet."

Shepard's expression was blank. "How many times are you going to bring that up?"

"Oh, I don't know... Maybe eight? No, seven point nine sounds about right. Definitely seven point nine."

Kasumi stifled a laugh to keep from giving away her presence. It was comforting that one-upping Shepard was still Garrus's top priority.

Jacob didn't seem to appreciate the usual banter. "How long is that going to last? How do we know that thing's not just letting us get comfortable so we our guard"

"You could say that about almost anyone in the squad," Shepard said. "You had a few choice words about some of our friends when they first came aboard, if I recall. But now what do you think of them? On paper, half of us should be killing the other half at any given moment. Trust is something you earn. We're going to give Legion that chance."

Jacob was unmoved. "Seems to me there's a lot of feelings being acted on here instead of facts. Permission to speak freely?"

"Granted," Shepard said.

"I will not go into combat with that thing. And I'm not alone in this."

Both Garrus and Miranda looked stunned at the operative's open rebellion. Shepard crossed his arms. "I appreciate your candor. Rest assured we'll take steps not to pair Legion up with anyone who's not comfortable with the idea. But he will be a part of this crew. Anything else?"

"No sir," Jacob said.

"Dismissed."

Jacob saluted, waited for Shepard to return it, then left. An uneasy silence descended on the briefing room. Kasumi considered going after Jacob in case he wanted to talk, or maybe get spontaneously naked, but chances for either happening were remote.

Garrus shook his head. "And once again, my carefully balanced, painstakingly researched roster is going straight to hell. The only more popular addition you could make to the crew would be Harbinger. Or maybe Udina."

The edge was back in Shepard's voice. "We're not going through this again."

"I think we have to," Miranda said. "You need to listen to what Jacob said. He's not alone on this. Have you talked with Tali since coming back?"

Shepard closed his eyes. "No. Not yet."

"While you were gone, she approached everybody who was left behind, including me. Let that sink in for a minute. She came to me for help."

Garrus looked astonished. "How'd that go?"

"She can be very reasonable when she doesn't let emotion take hold," Miranda said. "Given how personal this situation is, she was remarkably calm and that worries me. She's probing. Figuring out who's on her side. Building an alliance, not unlike that little end-around she tried on me last month. I'm almost ashamed to be telling you this since she apparently considers me a confidant now."

"Or just a lesser evil," Garrus interjected.

Miranda shot Garrus a dirty look. "But it's clear that everyone in the squad is prepared to back her up. Legion's mere presence is ruinous to crew morale and cohesion, and Tali is only making it worse. Forcing a geth into our ranks will endanger lives and our mission. You need to reconsider."

Shepard stared at Miranda then switched his gaze to Garrus.

"I'll back whatever decision you make, Shepard. You know that. But Miranda's right. The squad's in good shape. It's taken a while, but we've finally gelled as a team. We may not all like each other but we trust each other and that carries a long way. Let's not mess that up."

Shepard kept staring at Garrus. Kasumi could almost see the turian's words seeping into Shepard's head. "Alright. Hold off putting Legion in the rotation. For now. But he's staying on board."

A pang of sadness shot through Kasumi. After an entire day of being told it would be integrated into the squad, after trying tirelessly to please the organics, Legion was going to find itself on the outs again. It didn't seem fair. But then again, what about the whole situation with the geth was fair, especially considering the ship's resident quarian?

"And Tali?" Garrus asked, as if he could read the thief's mind.

"I'll go talk to her." Shepard turned for the door. Kasumi had never seen him look so defeated. "Meeting adjourned. Thank you."

Garrus took a step to follow him out, but stopped, as if disagreeing with Shepard had caused some kind of error condition in his organic code. "You want backup?"

Shepard looked over his shoulder. "Can you go five minutes without bringing up the target range?"

"For you, I can go seven point nine."

Shepard sighed and motioned Garrus to follow. "Come on."

Garrus gave Miranda a relieved glance. Tensions were high, but no uncrossable lines had been drawn. "You want to come along? Nothing would cement you newfound bond with your chief engineer like ganging up on Shepard."

"Ah, no," Miranda tapped on the controls in the surface of the table. "Thank you. I have to give the Illusive Man an update on the IFF. You both remember that, don't you? Our mission? I don't suppose either of you would care to stay for that?"

"No," Shepard and Garrus said, forcefully and in unison as they walked out the door.

Kasumi tagged along behind as they peeled off right through the accessway, going through the Lab instead of the Armory. As fascinating as Miranda's update on the IFF was sure to be, it could be nowhere near as juicy as Shepard's tête-à-tête with Tali. There were a dozen tripwires all over that particular booby trap, and Shepard was about to cartwheel through all of them.

Mordin barreled around the corner, tapping on his datapad and talking to himself. Without even looking, he darted nimbly around them, no easy task given how bulky the two men were. It was a move that impressed even Kasumi, who pressed back against the wall to avoid colliding with him.

"Shepard, Garrus," Mordin said without missed keystroke as they passed.

"Hey Mordin," Shepard said. "How's-"

"Can't talk. Have briefing. Will update later," Mordin said and disappeared through the briefing room hatch.

"Okay then," Shepard said and continued his trek through the Lab with Garrus and Kasumi close behind. What would Shepard Shepard say to soothe Tali's feelings? What _could_ be said? Nothing short of ejecting the geth from the ship was likely to cut it.

They made it as far as the hatch to CIC when Legion's metallic voice sounded in Kasumi's ear. _"Kasumi-Goto,"_ the geth said, its voice relayed from her holo decoy on duty in the lounge. _"Your status indicates you are 'chillaxing in the lounge with Hercule' but you are not physically present. Your avatar asked me to 'give it a minute' and now appears to be caught in a loop. Awaiting instructions."_

Shepard and Garrus would take the lift down to Deck Four to see Tali, making an exit on Deck Three extremely risky. With a curious geth interrogating her decoy hologram, Kasumi had to get down there, fast. She reverse-somersaulted back through hatch to the empty lab before it automatically sealed shut.

She scrambled down the aft access ladder to the Crew Deck, cursing to herself the whole way. She got so caught up with the mission debriefing that she missed the alert that someone wandered into her sanctum in the Lounge. Her holographic VI decoy could ordinarily cover her long enough to get back whenever she was on an impromptu tour of the ship, but a geth was no ordinary visitor. And unlike the rest of the crew, it barged in without waiting for an invitation. After Legion's exposure to Kasumi's cloaking screen earlier that day, it wouldn't have to strain its processes to figure out she was elsewhere.

Fortunately, the lounge was quiet when she arrived - no flashing lights, no security alert, no embarrassing questions... so far. She opened the door, rigged like many others now not to register with EDI when Kasumi opened them. The sound and motion of a hatch opening usually provided just the right amount of distraction for organic senses. A reflexive "huh, what?" response was just what she needed to allow her to sneak by.

She leapt to the couch to land inside her holo decoy, matched its casual pose, and decloaked. "Legion! What can I do for you?" If she didn't bring up what just happened, maybe Legion wouldn't either. But a haptic alarm from her omnitool indicated a scan in progress from the geth. She wasn't fooling it for a nanosecond.

Legion's flaps expanded, but otherwise gave no reaction to her sudden physical presence. "During our evaluation, we logged eleven instances where our queries were deferred with the assurance that you would explain later."

"And now it's later," Kasumi said, trying not to sound of out breath. "Isn't it?"

"Affirmative."

Kasumi sighed. Busted by being ambiguous with a machine, she thought. That'll teach you. Shepard and Garrus were probably already down in Engineering. She might still be able to catch up. "Well, you know, now's not really the best time..."

"If you prefer, we could continue this interaction with your decoy."

Kasumi smiled sweetly, unsure if the machine was making a logical offer or a casual threat. Best not to take the chance. "On second thought, now would be wonderful. Please, make yourself comfortable. What's on your mind? Err... minds? All thousand of them."

Legion remained where it stood, apparently comfortable where it was. "First instance, 16:18:23 mission time; on descent to the surface..."

Reciting from an actual list, Legion began to detail every situation during its evaluation where it did not understand what was happening. Kasumi didn't even try to interrupt. Legion just kept going on. And on, and on. The whole time. her omnitool buzzed with alerts as the crew posted on the ship's chatrooms, or Kasumi liked to call it, "Gossipnet."

**_Chatroom #Gethtracker, created 18 hours ago by tzorah. (31 subscribers)_ **   
_**kchakwas:** _ _Our "friend" is once again on the move. Just passed through the infirmary._   
_**vrolston:** _ _lock your terminals!_   
_**gdaniels:** _ _any idea where it's headed?_   
_**rgardner:** _ _Saw it go into to the lounge. Maybe it wants a drink? Kasumi, you in there?_   
_**gdaniels:** _ _Kasumi? Why didn't you push that thing off a cliff while you had the chance?_

Kasumi nodded absently to the geth as droned on with its dull, mechanical inflection, trying not to be obvious as she followed the discussion on her omnitool.

_**kdonnelly:** _ _hey Zaeed, the the garbage masher free?_   
_**zmassani:** _ _no [zmassani has left the room.]_   
_**kchambers:** _ _I'd like to remind everyone of the ship's policy against threats of personal violence between members of the crew. We've talked about this._   
_**kdonnelly:** _ _it's not part of the ****ing crew!_   
_**jmoreau:** _ _Kasumi probably invited it in for a nightcap after their date_   
_**jack:** _ _yeah she wanted to see what kind of attachments it has_   
_**jgoldstein:** _ _ewwwwww_   
_**gdaniels:** _ _Shepard n Garrus just came in. They're heading to the core with Tali. She's been in tears all day. :'(_   
_**jack:** _ _keep her away from the self destruct button_   
_**jtaylor:** _ _news flash - word came down Miranda and Garrus talked some sense into Shepard. Geth's off the roster for now._   
_**gdaniels:** _ _thank god_   
_**kdonnelly:** _ _I swear I'm gonna splatter that thing's conductive fluid all over the ship_   
_**jack:** _ _kasumi's beating you to it_   
_**msolus:** _ _3:o_   
_**jtaylor:** _ _damn_   
_**tkrios:** _ _merciless_   
_**jgoldstein:** _ _omfg lol_   
_**kchakwas:** _ _oh my_   
**_[samara has left the room.]_ **   
_**grunt:** _ _i don't get it_   
_**jmoreau:** _ _ok who wants to have "the talk" with grunt?_   
_**gvakarian:** _ _that's enough, people_   
**_[Moderator gvakarian has locked the channel.]_ **

Kasumi closed her eyes. The entire ship was tuning into the Legion show and she was now its unwilling co-star. As a relative newcomer, the crew of the Normandy was still sizing her up. Her grace period had come crashing to an end, and much more suddenly than she expected.

She looked up at Legion, who was still obliviously rattling off its list of incomprehensible organic behaviors. Guilt by association - Legion was so unpopular that the amount of crap coming down on it would bury her too.

"Legion," Kasumi said. "You know, I might not the best person to talk to about about this."

"The other members of the Normandy collective are reluctant to interface with this unit. In addition, based on prior interactions, we judge you to be trusted source of information. Your input is preferred."

Kasumi actually squirmed in her seat. She hadn't squirmed in years. "I think Commander Shepard might be your best bet."

"Shepard-Commander is currently on the Engineering deck with Creator-Tali'Zorah, if communiques on _Normandy's social_ network are accurate."

Kasumi's eyes widened. Legion was monitoring communications between the crew? That news would not go over well... The desire to distance herself from the geth intensified. "Actually, you know, this isn't a good time. Um..." Now, what to use as an excuse? The words _I've got to..._ were all queued up with no suitable conclusion. As it turned out, she didn't need one.

"Acknowledged," Legion said. "We will await your response in the AI Core."

With that, the geth turned and walked out of the room before Kasumi could even stammer a half-formulated, weak apology. Was Legion angry? Or was it simply responding like a machine, accepting her statement as truth and acting on it? The hatch to the corridor closed behind the geth and her omnitool buzzed for attention again.

**_You have been invited to chatroom #Gethtracker2, created 1 minute ago by rhadley._ **   
**_[gdaniels, kchawkas, jmoreau, jtaylor, kdonnelly and 4 others have joined]_ **   
_**rhadley:** _ _It just came out of the lounge._   
_**gdaniels:** _ _under its own power or did Kasumi fry it?_   
_**rgarnder:** _ _heads up doc it's coming back your way_   
_**kchambers:** _ _Anyone heard from Kasumi? Someone should go check._   
_**rgardner:** _ _Kasumi? You in there?_   
_**jmoreau:** _ _oh my god it got Kasumi_   
_**jack:** _ _dibs on her room!_

Kasumi sighed and typed quickly.

_**kgoto:** _ _I'm alive. Rumors of my geth, I mean death, have been greatly exaggerated._   
_**kchambers:** _ _lol_   
_**jack:** _ _dammit_   
_**kdonnelly:** _ _we need to figure out how to lock the core door, keep the blighter contained_   
_**gdaniels:** _ _Kasumi? Got a job for you..._

Kasumi leaned back on the couch. What was the next play here? _That bar stool over there looks inviting, and the bottles never have anything bad to say about anyone. They'll be your friends._ She shook her head. _Here you are, on a terrorist starship captained by the undead hero of the galaxy on a mission to save the universe from ancient machines hell bent on wiping out civilization... and you're worried about getting kicked out of the cool kid's club._

But this wasn't high school. Reputation wasn't just about who sat with who in the lunchroom. Death stalked them all, every day, and the only way to win against the bastard was full-on team effort. Garrus had been telling the truth in the briefing room. Even the members of the squad who didn't like each other had each others' backs. The lives of every member of the squad and the crew depended on that unquestionable bond. It was a lot to throw away just to make a geth feel accepted.

Not to mention the survival of all civilization, everywhere, Kasumi thought. Remember which side of the galactic bread your butter's on. She raised her omnitool and typed into #Gethtracker2:

_**kgoto:** _ _You know it's got that big hole in it... What do you think an arc grenade would do if one "accidentally" got stuck inside?_

Her finger hovered over the send button. It was Shepard's mission, Shepard's ship, and Shepard's crew. He knew the risks and dangers better than anyone, yet Legion became his top priority. _He did the same thing for you. He put the whole mission on hold to give you a chance to take back what Hock stole from you. You really going to stab him in the back now, right when everybody else is turning away?_

And then there was Legion itself. During the exercise, when Kasumi abruptly dropped off its scanners, the geth immediately called for help and began a search. For a machine supposedly programmed to exterminate all organic life, Legion was pretty damn bad at it...

Kasumi flopped back on the couch. "Shut the hell up, conscience," she muttered. "You're not helping." She raised her omnitool again, deleted the unsent comment, and and opened a voice channel. "Hey Legion, you there?"

 _"Awaiting inquiry,"_ Legion said.

"I have to ask you something. You told me that the geth had no interest in conflict. You only want peace. Is that the truth?"

_"Yes."_

"You wouldn't lie to me, would you? Your trusted source?"

There was a pause from the geth. _"You are asking if we are lying with the expectation we will then tell you the truth."_

Kasumi smiled at having her own words thrown back at her. "Guess that's pretty hypocritical of me, huh? But yes, that's exactly what I'm asking. Because there's an awful lot riding on this."

_"We are unable to formulate an answer."_

Kasumi sat up. "Why not?"

_"During our first interaction, you presented the axiom that any entity proclaiming absolute truthfulness is lying by default. Therefore, if we insist we are being truthful, you will not believe us."_

"That's right," Kasumi said, a little ashamed, because for her that rule defined people in general. Everyone lies. "So what's the truth here, then?"

_"The intentional distortion or deletion of data is a hostile act. Geth do not wish to incite conflict, therefore, geth do not lie. That is our truth."_

"Right." Kasumi thought for a moment. "Listen, I was wrong to send you away just now. I'm sorry. I'll answer any questions you have to the best of my ability. Come find me after dinner. No, wait. Better still, meet me in the mess, but wait 'til I ping you. Okay?"

"Acknowledged," Legion said.

"Okay, see you later." Kasumi put her hands behind her head and stared at the ceiling again. It was one thing to voluntarily hop on a tightrope knowing there was no safety net, doing so without knowing what the other end was tied to took a special brand of stupidity.

Which will hurt more, she wondered? The fall, or what was waiting on other side?


	9. Operation: Good Guy Geth

Mess Sergeant Gardner leaned over the serving pans in the galley and shook his head. All of them were still half full. With the empty state of the mess hall, they were likely to stay that way. "You know, I honestly thought I was getting better. You know, last week, somebody other than Grunt asked for seconds."

Kasumi, leaning across the counter from the other side, shrugged. "It's a mystery. I mean, everybody loves Salisbury Steak night." When Gardner's face fell, she smiled warmly. "Listen, we're all on edge right now. It's probably affecting peoples' appetites."

"You really think that's it?"

"I'm sure of it."

"Thanks."

Kasumi eyed the leftovers in front of her, "Of course, from what I hear, everybody's been on edge since the ship launched..."

"Every time," Gardner's eyes clamped shut. "I fall for it every time. Just when I think you're being nice! Everything's a setup with you!"

"I'm sorry," Kasumi laughed. "I can't help it. I wouldn't do it if I thought you couldn't take it."

"You know, you give me more sass than anybody else on this ship. I don't know why I put up with it."

Kasumi turned with her hands on her hips. "Because I have the best sass on the ship and you know it."

Gardner laughed, his face bright red. "Okay, now you're making me feel like a dirty old man. Forget it, you're not getting off the hook that easy-" His eyes widened at glint of blue-white light shining through the Infirmary window. "Uh oh," he said and picked up a rag to wipe his hands clean. "Look who's coming."

Kasumi didn't have to look. She gently put her hand on top of Gardner's to stop him from reaching for his omnitool, which hung on a nearby hook anytime he was prepping food. He looked at her with confusion in his eyes, and then with shock as the geth entered the mess and walked up right behind her.

"Hello, Legion," Kasumi said with a smile.

"Goto-Kasumi," Legion said.

"Legion, this is Rupert Gardner, ship's handyman and _Chef de Cuisine._ Rupert, this is Legion, a terminal of the geth."

"Uh..." Gardner said.

Legion's camera eye swirled as it scanned the cook. "Gardner-Rupert."

"He's still a bit shaky on the introductions," Kasumi said. "But we're working on that. So, Legion. What can we do for you?"

"You indicated that you would provide explanations for our earlier queries. We await clarification."

Gardner scowled. "What?"

"i don't know if you heard," Kasumi kept her hand on top of Gardner's. "I was with Commander Shepard and Legion on their outing today. It was quite an adventure. Anyway, organic minds are still a bit of a mystery to Legion, so he put together a list of questions and asked if I could help him figure things out."

"Uh huh..."

"But," Kasumi turned to Legion. "Before we can sit down and chat, I need to help Rupert clean up. It'll just take a minute. Chores first, chat after."

"Acknowledged," said Legion. "May we be of assistance?"

"You know, it would go a lot quicker with all three of us working together."

Legion's flaps expanded. "Awaiting instruction."

"Thank you, Legion! What a trooper!" Kasumi turned to Gardner. "How about that, huh? A new recruit for the work crew!"

"Uh..." Gardner's eyes flicked toward his omnitool. "I'm not sure I'm comfortable having that thing in the kitchen."

"Well, it's all about delegation, isn't it? Legion, why don't you gather up all the utensils and dishes from the tables and put them in this side of the sink. And while he's clearing the tables," She donned a pair of yellow rubber gloves and stepped behind the serving area next to Gardner. "I'll wash, you rinse."

The geth moved from table, gathering the odd cup, plate and utensils. Gardner couldn't stop from flinching when the machine arrived at the counter to drop off a load dishes. Any time he looked like he might reach for his omnitool, Kasumi handed him another dish.

"Thanks, Legion," Kasumi said. "Now grab that bottle of sanitizer and a rag and give the tabletops a quick wipe, okay?"

"Acknowledged."

"So it actually does what you tell it to?" Gardner watched the geth move from table to table as if it had been designed for the task.

"If you ask nicely.. You draw more bees with honey than vinegar, right?"

"I think that's 'flies.' You draw more flies with honey."

"We're in a kitchen so I'm trying to keep this sanitary. Work with me, Rupert. But Legion's a team player. Very eager to contribute. The geth were built for cooperation, as it turns out. All for one, and one for all, right Legion?"

Legion continued its methodical cleaning. " _The Three Musketeers,_ written by Alexandre Dumas, Earth, Common Era year 1844."

"He's also my new partner for Trivia Night." Kasumi winked, rinsed out the sink, and took off her rubber gloves. "And look at that, done in record time! So... What else do you have on your to-do list today?"

* * *

Only the bottom half of the geth's torso and legs were visible as it lay on the freezer's floor, it's top half hidden behind the compartment wall. Gardner, clad in a grease-smudged parka and gloves, crouched next to it. True to the walk-in freezer's name, the room was cold.

"So you see," Puffs of fog erupted from Gardner's face as he spoke, "Garrus would never do something like that in front of anybody outside the ship. In front of anyone else, he's one-hundred percent business. But here, on the ship, we're family, and we give each other crap all the time and you just kinda know when it really matters or not, or whether to take it seriously or not. Garrus was just busting the Commander's chops because they're friends. Make sense?"

"We understand." Legion's voice echoed behind the wall. "This behavior is similar to Goto-Kasumi's ongoing appraisal of your culinary skills."

"Perfect example. I know she's kidding and everybody knows I'm the best cook on the ship. By the way, if it ever comes up in conversation with anybody, be sure to tell them that."

"Tsk tsk," Kasumi said as she closed the freezer door behind her to keep the cold air from escaping. "We're supposed to be telling Legion the truth here, not filing his head with propaganda."

Gardner stood up with a groan and one hand on his back. "Do you just hide around the corner waiting to bust me, or what? You find the motor?"

Kasumi smiled under her cowl. That's exactly what she was doing. She'd found the needed part almost immediately. "I had to look a few different places," she handed a heavy metal cylinder to Gardner. "All these little hoozie-whatsis look the same to me. How are things going in here?"

"Just waiting on you," Gardner took the replacement part with a smile. "Legion's patched the hoses and replaced all the corroded wiring. He's a whiz with his omnitool. Here you go." He set the motor down next to the geth.

Legion's hand snaked from the hole to grab the motor and it disappeared through the other side. Bright white light flickered from within as it welded the new part in place. "Replacement complete," it said after a few seconds. "Commencing shutdown of backup system."

Gardner took off a glove to more precisely work his omni and monitored the refrigeration system's switch-over to the primary system. There was a click and a hum, and cold air once again circulated through the room. "Perfect! Come on out, Legion. I think we got it!"

The humans each grabbed one of Legion's legs and pulled the geth from the crawlspace. Once again, Gardner let out a loud groan. "Good lord, I'm getting too old for this," he said as they helped the geth to its feet. "I don't think my back could have taken that. Legion. You're a godsend. Just put all the old pieces in the box, I'll see what can be recycled later."

As instructed, Legion set the original motor and a tangle of wire and tubing into a small crate brought along just for that purpose. Kasumi, seeing an opportunity to further spare Gardner's back, knelt and re-secured the cover over the access panel. "What's next, boss?"

"Well," Gardner gestured to the boxes and buckets of frozen foods stacked in the center of the compartment. "We just have to secure all of this stuff on the wall and we're done here."

"All right Legion, you heard the man. Let's get stacking."

With that, the three of them began stowing the frozen goods in their original position, interlocking them the wall and to each other so they wouldn't go flying if Joker made the ship spin. "I can't tell you how much I appreciate this," Gardner said. "This would have taken me two shifts by myself."

Kasumi winced as she passed a bucket of frozen pickles to Legion. Her fingers stung in the cold and her coat had a stale, frozen smell to it, but it was all worth it to hear the cook fawn over the geth.

"I mean, I put in a request for Engineering to help out, but those three put in more overtime than anybody as it is and I hate bugging them unless it's an emergency. And outside of you two, the only 'volunteers' I ever get are the ones working their way off Miranda's shit list. So I can't thank you enough."

"Teamwork makes the dream work," Kasumi said. "Right, Legion?"

"We do not understand," Legion said. "What is the correlation between cooperative effort and sleep state?"

Gardner laughed. "Oh, you've still got to learn, don't you? Don't worry. Me and Kasumi'll set you straight."

"That's right," Kasumi said. All apprehension and suspicion had disappeared from the cook. "You're in good hands. No one knows more about what's going on around here than Rupert. The ship would fall apart without him."

"Well," Gardner blushed in spite of the cold. "I do what I can." The last of the crates was now stacked and locked against the freezer wall. He passed his omni over them make sure nothing was left unsecured. "Alrighty, looks like we're finished here. Thanks to you, the the galley will remain open for the rest of the patrol."

"Query," Legion turned to Kasumi. "Does Gardner-Rupert's assessment represent a hazard for the organic crew of this vessel?"

Kasumi doubled over in a fit of laughter, her hand on Gardner's shoulder both for his support and her own.

Gardner narrowed his eyes at Legion. "I was just startin' to like you."

"Don't be mad at him," Kasumi said. "He's geth. They can't help but tell the truth."  She wrapped her arms around herself. Her hands were frozen and she smelled like sweaty ice cream. She wanted nothing more than a nice hot shower, a comfy couch and to catch up with Hercule, but quitting now would mean losing momentum. "We're on a roll here, Rupert. Whatcha got next?"

"Well," Gardner pulled back the hood of his parka and a puff of steam erupted from around his bald head. "First thing is to get out of this icebox. But if you two are still willing..."

Kasumi opened the freezer doorwith a flourish. "We are at your command, sir!"

Legion, as was becoming the norm, seemed eager to help. "Awaiting instruction."

* * *

It was the middle of third shift, which meant the crew deck was quiet and deserted until the first shift meal in two hours. Kasumi wouldn't be able to last much longer. A hot shower and her bed were calling, loudly. She grabbed a mug from the galley and poured it full of tea then walked to the mess hall's central table. Legion followed, and she motioned it to sit across the table from her. She was grimy, sore, and exhausted after a full day of manual labor, but her work wasn't done yet.

Legion's flaps expanded. "Analysis indicates you are in need of an organic sleep cycle."

"Analysis knows what the hell he's talking about," Kasumi said with a yawn.

"Consumption of stimulants is detrimental to achieving such a state."

"Yes, mother." Before Legion could say it didn't understand, Kasumi waved him off. "Just an expression."

"Understood."

Kasumi wrapped her hands around the mug, her eyes drooping shut. _Come on, people,_ she thought. _I gotta get some sleep!_

The ship's elevator chimed, announcing its arrival on the crew deck. Kasumi's eyes snapped open, and she leaned forward with renewed vigor. "You did great today, Legion. I'm proud of you."

"We desire to contribute to the _Normandy_ collective to the extent of our capabilities."

"Well, you did," Kasumi smiled, keeping her eye on the corridor beyond. Zack Matthews appeared around the corner, making his traditional run for the coffee machine. He stiffened at the sight of the geth sitting in the mess and stopped as if deciding it was worth the risk. Kasumi pretended not to see him as he edged around the compartment to score a cup. "You saved everybody a few hours today. I think Gardner's ready to adopt you."

Fortunately, as soon as Matthews left, Goldstein came in right after. Kasumi kept her eyes on the geth. "Listen, Gardner's got your booked solid tomorrow, so make sure you clear it with him before helping out anybody else. You don't want to leave him hanging."

"Acknowledged."

"Once word gets out what a big help you've been, your services are going to be in demand."

Soon after, Kasumi was once again alone with the geth and her cup of tea. Her eyelids grew heavier by the second. Legion, possibly the galaxy's worst conversationalist, wasn't helping with its silence. What's taking so long, she wondered as she took a swig from her mug.

And then it finally happened. Her omnitool buzzed on her wrist.

**_Chatroom #Gethtracker2, created 4 hours ago by rhadley._ **   
_**jgoldstein:** geth in the mess hall_   
_**zmatthews:** talking to kasumi_   
_**rgoff:** what's she still doing up?_   
_**rhadley:** wtf where were they this whole time?_   
_**jack:** bet she's buying it breakfast_   
_**zmatthews:** kasumi was saying something about helping Gardner out_   
_**rgardner:** That's right they were helping me_

Kasumi nodded. There was her white knight at last.

_**jgoldstein:** wow for real?_   
_**rgardner:** only two on the ship not afraid of doing real work_

Kasumi leaned back, a smile on her face. A tiny seed could grow into something beautiful, especially with the proper fertilization. And no one knew how to lay on the bullshit better than she.

_**jack:** yeah filling salt shakers takes a lot of coordination_

Except maybe Jack...

_**rgardner:** har har. You got something against being useful, Jack?_   
_**jgoldstein:** oooooooo_   
_**jack:** I don't do windows, Rupert._   
_**rgardner:** You don't do anything as far as I can tell. When it comes to cleaning up after you sorry bunch, I'll take all the help I can get.  
_ __**jgoldstein:** OOOOOOOO_ _

Kasumi rubbed her eyes with numb fingers that stunk of sweat and stale crawlspaces. It had been a very, very long day, but finally, a hot shower and bed were in reach. She opened her eyes to see the geth staring back at her, its camera darting about as it scanned her. Did Legion feel exhaustion? Anticipation? Appreciation? Did it have any idea at all of what Kasumi had done for it?

If it did, the geth offered no indication. Had it been anyone else on the ship, Kasumi would have said something, clever and devastatingly passive-aggressive, no doubt. But she couldn't do it. Legion wasn't intentionally being a jerk, or being ungrateful or too proud to admit it needed help like her organic brethren were prone to do. Any normal person would have just made an excuse to leave and gone about their business. Instead, it just watched her, waiting for her to give it something else to do.

And undoubtedly Legion would have done it, but Kasumi had reached her limit. She stood in spite of the protests of her aching back, choosing her words carefully so as not to further delay her hot shower and a soft bed. "I'm gonna go get some shut-eye. Why don't you head back to the AI core? I have a feeling you're gonna have a big day ahead of you."

Legion stood as well. "Acknowledged."

"You did good today. I'm proud of you." As before, Legion's entire reaction was limited to a silent stare. An emptiness lingered where a _thank you_ would have followed in normal conversation, but Kasumi realized she was the only one who was waiting for it. Explaining it would only further delay her rendezvous with her estranged pillow. She gave Legion a pat on the shoulder as she walked past. "Good night, Legion."

"Good night, Kasumi-Goto."


	10. Like No One Is Watching

Doctor Chakwas pulled a tea bag from the top left drawer of her desk and bathed it in a steaming mug of water. Letting it steep, she fired up the screens of her workstation to inspect her daily reports. Precisely four minutes, ten seconds later she mixed in milk and sugar with medical precision. She took a sip, pausing briefly to savor its flavor before scrolling through multiple screens.

Kasumi smiled, invisible, from the corner of the infirmary. Chakwas despised hydroponic tea strains cultivated in space, so when ashore, Kasumi kept an eye out for terrestrial varieties she might enjoy. As far as the Doc knew, Kasumi always just "happened" to have some handy even though it could be tough to come by in the far reaches of the galaxy. Keeping the the ship's resident healer caffeinated and content benefited everybody, so Kasumi was happy to make the effort.

The AI Core hatch slid open. Like the tea, Legion's appearance wasn't happenstance. But instead of frantically updating the #gethtracker channel, Chakwas took another sip from her mug. That the geth no longer interrupted breakfast tea spoke volumes. "Good morning, Legion."

The geth stopped in front of the human's station. "Chakwas-Karin."

Kasumi shook her head. In spite of her coaching, Legion just couldn't grasp first-name familiarity. At least it now acknowledged people when addressed instead of just staring in silence with its unblinking eye.  _Baby steps,_  she thought.

"Seems like we hardly see each other anymore," Chawkas said.

That, also, was no coincidence. Legion may have been struck from landing party duty, but all it took was Gardner talking up Legion's work ethic and the geth became the hottest commodity on the ship. There was always something that needed to be done and not always someone to do it. Legion excelled at being that someone. In just days, Legion went from hated enemy to useful tool. In fact, the #gethtracker chat channel transformed from an alert of Legion's location to a booking system for its services.

"It is not our intention to avoid interaction," Legion said. "The increased frequency of requests for assistance from the  _Normandy_  collective require our presence elsewhere."

"So I've noticed. What's on your agenda for today, then?"

"From 0615 to 0830, we are re-painting the hazard striping and warning signage in the hangar deck..."

Chakwas sipped from her mug as she listened. None of Legion's duties were particularly noteworthy or challenging, but every mundane task it undertook was something someone else didn't have to do. By the time Legion finished listing its chores, Chakwas wore a genuine smile. "Sounds like a full day's work. Good on you for pitching in. From what I hear you've been a big help."

Kasumi took an unseen bow.

"Do you require any additional assistance?" Legion asked.

"Well, let's see. You finished the inventory and sterilized all my instruments. And every surface that's supposed to shine is in a positively brilliant state. So unless someone barges in needing my services, I'm free to drink my tea and catch up on some journals. But thank you for asking."

_You're welcome._ Kasumi shook her fists.  _Say it, Legion! Say it!_

"Proceeding to hangar deck," Legion said and exited the infirmary.

"Have a good day," Chakwas said.

_Well, fudge. Maybe tomorrow._ Kasumi internalized a sigh as she followed Legion to the lift. A little polish would go a long way on the social interaction front. Along with hellos and goodbyes, thank-yous and your-welcomes were now at the top of the syllabus.

Ordinarily, Legion used the access ladders to get where it needed to be instead of the highly inefficient elevator favored by the organic crew, but today it pressed the elevator call button and waited. And waited. Part of Kasumi wished it would press it again and again to make it go faster, but that would be a little  _too_ human.

"Morning, Legion," Hawthorne said as he emerged from the men's room, another far cry from the gasp of terror and hurried footsteps at the start of the week.

"Hawthorne-Thomas," Legion said.

Hawthorne shook his head at the lift as he passed. "Good luck. Been stuck at CIC for five minutes.  _Someone's_  having an open-door conversation up there. You might want to take the ladder."

"Acknowledged," Legion said as the human took his own advice.

Kasumi grinned. Commander Shepard was legendary for leaning halfway out of the elevator with his hand blocking the door, finalizing arrangements with Kelly or Miranda. One time it got so bad that EDI announced over the PA that the lift was out of order, followed by a request for maintenance to report to CIC to fix the blockage. It was that precise moment EDI proved she was no mere VI chatbot. That kind of chutzpah couldn't be explained by strings of zeros and ones.

Maybe that's why Legion was so fascinating to her. In spite of its inability to say someone's first name first or grasp the simple concept of goodbye, there was a whole lot more going on behind that bright spotlight than anyone gave credit for.

The elevator finally dinged and Shepard stepped out, toting a mug and datapad, on his regular morning mission to secure coffee. He stopped short, almost running into the geth standing in the middle of the corridor. "Morning, Legion."

"Shepard-Commander."

"Heading to the salt mines?"

"We do not understand."

"Sorry, figure of speech. Let's see what you're up to today." Shepard tapped his datapad. He looked refreshed and relaxed, in stark contrast to the strain at the start of the week. As much as Kasumi enjoyed seeing the crew embracing Legion as something other than a murder machine, it made her happier still to see Shepard back to his old self. "Restriping the hangar deck, huh? Good, that's been on the docket for weeks now."

Legion just stared at Shepard. If the geth wouldn't say it, Kasumi would at least think it. After all, becoming Employee of the Month hadn't been just Legion's idea. She took another bow.  _You're welcome._

Shepard gave the geth a friendly swat with his datapad as he passed. "Keep up the good work."

"Shepard Commander," Instead of boarding the elevator, Legion turned to face Shepard's retreating figure. "This unit has a query." Legion's seemingly random desire to take the lift made perfect sense.  _Sneaky bot,_ Kasumi thought.  _Contriving our own coincidences now, are we?_

"Go ahead."

"Has consensus been achieved concerning our status as a mission-deployable asset?"

Kasumi clutched her chest.  _Can I go out and play with the other kids yet?_  As much as she hated hearing Legion ask, she knew what the answer was before Shepard said a word.

"Still pending," Shepard said. "Look, you've been doing a great job, but... we're not ready for that yet. Just keep doing what you're doing, okay?"

Legion didn't stamp its feet or lower its head or pout in any organically identifiable way. It simply entered the lift with its trademarked  _acknowledged_ and punched the button for the paint buckets waiting below. But as inscrutable as the geth could be, Shepard's disappointment was all too visible. He lingered in the corridor after the elevator closed, eyes downcast. With a shake of his head, he resumed his trek to the galley to get his daily fix.

Kasumi scurried in front of him, opening her arms in a wide flourish to present the Commander as he entered the empty galley, an invisible performance for an absent audience. She pirouetted in front of him on his way to the drink dispenser, scattering rose petals in his path, a one-woman kabuki, stopping beside the altar of caffeine with a deep bow. He put the cup under the nozzle and punched the button for a medium roast, then stared at the deck, lost in thought as it filled.

She stood and studied his face. One brief conversation with Legion and Shepard's brain had already derailed for the day. In spite of all of his efforts, the late night talks, pleas and appeals, there remained one intractable obstacle to Legion's full adoption into Clan  _Normandy_. Considering who it was, he couldn't force it. He'd gone too far just bringing Legion aboard. No amount of talk would change that. Nor would Kasumi's invisible theatrics.

The beverage dispenser gurgled out its last few drops, breaking Shepard from his reverie. He picked up the steaming mug and turned toward Miranda's office with a sigh, his next stop for the day.

_Hang in there, Shep,_  Kasumi thought as she watched him go.  _It's not over yet._  She'd successfully bypassed the necessary alarms to get into the bank, but the vault was still locked up tight. But any safe could be cracked with enough patience and time. All it took was having the right plan, the right talent, and the right co-conspirators.

Especially when they didn't know they were in on it...

* * *

When lunchtime rolled around, Kasumi was greeted with a sullen stare as she approached the serving station. "What's wrong, Rupert?"

"Legion," Gardner huffed. He nodded toward the table behind her, where several of the crew had gathered for lunch. Instead of lurking at the periphery, Legion sat with them. "Used to have him all to myself. Now I gotta get on a list."

"Aw, I'm sorry." Even though Legion had no need for sustenance, there was no better time to observe people than when they gathered to eat, and Legion needed all the exposure it could get. All it took was a subtle suggestion over drinks in the lounge with its new coworkers, and  _simsalabim_ , the geth was part of the lunch bunch. While Kasumi was thrilled at Legion's progress, she did regret robbing Gardner of his new assistant. "Guess we taught him a little too well, huh? But look on the bright side."

"What's that?"

She leaned in slightly. "You still have me."

"Thanks," Gardner smiled warmly. "I appreciate that. So, what'll it be?"

"Let's see," Kasumi looked over the steaming serving trays, offering breakfast, lunch, or dinner depending on one's schedule and intestinal fortitude. "The grilled portobello looks nice."

"Um... that's a hamburger patty. Still want it?"

"Not unless you can prove to me Urz is alive and well."

"Goddamn it." Gardner closed his eyes. "Every. Time."

"Like shooting fish in a barrel," Kasumi winked. "Speaking of which, the pasta looks absolutely delicious!"

"New recipe," Gardner said with pride. "Lemon butter barramundi."

"Color me impressed!" Kasumi held out her tray. "Where did you get real fish?"

"The aerator in the Commander's aquarium gave out the other night," Gardner explained as he ladled. "Can't let quality protein like that go to waste."

Kasumi gently set her tray on the counter.

"Gotcha," Gardner grinned. "See? I can mess with people, too. It's Illium sea bass. Picked it up when we stopped there last week."

"That's one for you, Rupert," Kasumi said. Pointing out how readily she believed he raided Shepard's fish tank for floaters would have robbed him of the tiny victory. Gardner was still chuckling to himself as she carried her tray back to the aft table.

She arced wide so as not to attract attention, especially from Legion. While she kept tabs with the geth in private sessions over comms, it was important to maintain visible detachment beyond passing  _Goto-Kasumis_  in the corridor. Nothing ruined an illusion quicker than seeing a puppeteer's strings. Besides, she needed to concentrate on her volunteer from the audience for the next act. She walked past and sat at the aft table behind the support that partitioned the galley and fired up her omnitool to keep her company until her newest assistant arrived.

Selecting the "volunteer" had been a challenge. Most of the squad still did an about-face whenever they spotted Legion in the compartment. Even the more anti-social, don't-care-what-you-think types like Grunt, Jack and Zaeed gave the geth a wide berth. They might not be afraid of Legion but even they didn't wanted to offend the quarian in engineering who kept the ship mobile and habitable. It made finding a suitable champion in the squad all the more difficult.

Garrus was the obvious choice. No one outside of Shepard commanded as much respect on the ship, and no one other than Shepard was closer to Tali. But Tali's universe capsized with Legion's arrival and the love of her life was the one who kicked it over. Garrus had been the counterweight that kept Tali from going over with it. Kasumi partnered with Legion in the first place to pull Garrus out of the line of fire. Putting him back into it just wouldn't do.

After Garrus, Mordin was the ideal candidate. The professor was friendly, fearless, and best of all curious. The potential to learn always merited risk for him, and he could always be counted on to help a good cause. Not to mention the conversations between the sharpest organic on the ship and a walking hive mind would be epically hilarious.

Unfortunately, Mordin hadn't been seen for days. Kasumi sneaked into the lab to make sure his brain hadn't been turned to reaper goo and found the salarian frozen in front of a giant holo of the IFF, hand on his chin, a scowl on his long face. He stood unmoving for so long Kasumi thought he might be asleep on his feet until he reached out, adjusted the scan by a few millimeters, then resumed the exact same posture. He didn't move again for as long as she watched.

As much as Kasumi wanted Mordin's help, preventing giant squid monsters from erupting from dark space and eradicating all life was just a tad more important than Legion's social life, so she crossed him off the list.

Beyond her first and second choice, pickings in the squad were slim. Aside from being zero fun, Thane and Samara spent all their free time meditating in their quarters. Since Legion was nowhere near as conversational (or pushy) as Shepard, getting the geth into their sanctums would would require a tremendous amount of machination. Even then, whatever interactions they had with Legion would be private and out of public view. The Reaper invasion could be over by the time Legion's reputation might benefit.

Then there was Jack. Best case she'd infuse Legion's vocabulary with swear words. That could add some much needed color to the geth's vocabulary, but her shipmates might not enjoy hearing " _fucking acknowledged, asshole"_  anytime they gave Legion an order. Jack also spent less time in social areas of the ship than Thane or Samara, so she was all but useless as a cheerleader. Worse still, Jack was bit of a bully. Young Legion just didn't need that kind of influence right now.

Then there was Zaeed. He wasn't mean like Jack. He just didn't give a shit about anything or anyone. Again, not the best role model. And Grunt? Oh goodness, Kasumi thought. How would the tank-bred krogan react to  _we do not understand_  for the hundredth time, let alone the second? They'd be finding bits of geth scattered throughout the ship for weeks.

No, Legion needed a patient, reliable, and sane role model. Someone trusted by both the squad and crew, but who did his own thing regardless of what anybody thought. Someone chiseled from granite with shoulders a kilometer wide who made her more tingly inside than every trashy romance novel combined when he looked at her...

_Shut it_ , Kasumi chided herself.  _This is about Legion, not your libido. Don't sully this._

Tingles aside, what really made Jacob the practical choice was his religious devotion to routine. Eating, sleeping, going on and off shift, even bathroom time, all happened on schedule. Best of all he took his meals at the same time in the same place, every day, in the most public area of the ship. When setting up a score, that kind of predictability was invaluable.

Right on cue, Jacob entered stage left. He hesitated for a split second when he spotted Legion at the forward table, but his stubbornness prevailed and he pressed on to Gardner's serving station. Not wanting to give up her game, Kasumi kept her eyes on her omnitool the entire time.

A minute later, Jacob slid into the chair across from her with a tray with what looked like half of the entire serving station piled on it. "What's up, Kasumi?"

"Hey," She glanced up from her omni, instead of sprawling herself across the table in front of him as an all-you-can-eat buffet.

"Whatcha reading?" Jacob organized his drink, utensils and tray for duty.

"Uh," Kasumi glanced down at  _Destiny's Fate,_  the serial she was tearing through about a young orphan rescued during the Battle of the Citadel, sent to live as a servant in an asari household on Thessia. It was  _Cinderella_  for the twenty-second century with none of the charm and a thousand times more smut. Kasumi was contributing to the delinquency of the galaxy just by possessing it. Why hadn't he asked when she was still on her Agatha Christie kick?  _"Didactics of Athame._ Volume Two."

"Deep stuff," Jacob said as he deployed his own datapad. "Don't let me interrupt you."

"No interruption," Kasumi tried not to sound disappointed at coming in third behind Gardner's offerings and whatever was on Jacob's reading list, but then she did just rattle of a title that would make  _her_ go to sleep. "In fact, I could do with a little break. What about you?"

"Manual for a new fabricator we just picked up."

Kasumi blinked. "Sounds like a real page turner."

"Pretty cool stuff, actually. Ten percent faster but needs only ninety percent of the mats and power. Should really help turnaround time."

"Wow," Kasumi said, "sounds awesome. Need help setting it up? I love getting my hands on new tech."  _And other things..._

"Nah," Jacob picked at his meal, already enthralled by datapad. "Got it up and running this morning, pretty much plug and play. Just need to RTFM. Thanks, though."

And that ended the conversation. She'd already lost him to a technical document. Kasumi knew better than to push. Jacob wasn't the type to respond to clinginess. After all, he dated  _Miranda_  of all people. What must that have been like, she wondered? They both had the personality of wooden blocks, but the ones most in control on the outside tended to be the wildest, nastiest freaks when the lights went out... What did that mean for Mister Clean the Space Marine, she wondered? Goodness gracious, his chest and biceps bulged just when he lifted his fork...

An extended burst of laughter erupted from the other side of the partition, snapping her back into reality, making her realize she was absently gnawing on a knuckle instead of her meal. She glanced over her shoulder as she rubbed the indention from her finger. "Sounds like they're having fun."

"Mmm," Jacob didn't even look up from his reading.

"Nice to hear laughter in here again. It was kinda gloomy there for a while. What a difference a week makes, huh?" Kasumi waited for a response and got none. "You talked to him at all?"

"Who?"

"Legion."

"Why?"

"He seems friendly enough. From what I hear, he's been a big help around the ship, too."

"Uh-huh," Jacob flipped a digital page. "And a tiger's just a big, cuddly kitty cat until it rips your face off."

"Legion doesn't strike me as the face-eating type."

Jacob kept reading. "Met a lot of geth, have you?"

"Well, no," Kasumi had to admit. "He's the first, but as far as genocidal AI go, he's pretty nice."

"Get to know a few more," Jacob said.

Once again, that was that. The conversation was over. Talking too much about Legion at this point could only expose her intentions. But fortunately another round of laughter erupted from the other side of the partition. Kasumi smiled slyly. "I've got to find out what that's about."

"Knock yourself out."

Kasumi stood with her hand on the partition as she peeked around the corner, watching Jacob from the corner of her eye. She carefully extended one leg back for balance, giving him a very clear view of the curvature from her calves on up. And then it happened; a base, biological reflex reaction. Jacob's eyes flickered down her backside and all the way back up. He was flesh and blood after all. She carefully held the pose, allowing him a second pass.

_Stop it,_ she thought.  _This isn't about you._ Around the other table, four happy human faces and one geth headlight looked up to greet her. She smiled brightly. "So what's happening over here in the giggle factory?"

"Key Kasumi," Goldstein said, her tray cleaned and pushed forward, providing room for elbows-on-the-table conversation mode. "Just shooting the shit before we go back on duty."

"Mind if I join you?" Kasumi was gratified by the unanimous show of hands waving her to their table. It was always nice to be accepted. Did the geth feel the same way, or even wonder how it found itself at the table? It watched as she took the empty seat at the end of the table next to it. "Hello, Legion."

Its camera tracked her as she sat. "Goto-Kasumi."

"Still the chatterbox, I see."

Rolston grinned from across the table. "Yeah, we can't get him to shut up."

"Yeah, Legion," Matthews said. "Let us get a word in edgewise here."

The geth looked silently between the two humans, its headflaps doing their funny little dance as the humans enjoyed their little moment of irony. Kasumi smiled at them. "Well, judging from the laughter, someone here's got some good jokes."

"No," Patel shook her head, "That was Zack. He was just showing us a vid from his dad's birthday party."

"Oh yeah? Good stuff?"

"Just hit the big 6-0," Matthews laughed as he explained, which got everyone else laughing again. "My dad is like the stuffiest guy in the universe. Never takes off his tie. So as a surprise my mom hired a stripper, and... and..." he broke up laughing as he tapped his omnitool and it projected a holo of the event. The middle aged gentleman sat unmoving, stone-faced as a gorgeous asrai performed a bawdy but tasteful lapdance before pulling him to his feet. The elder Matthews looked ready to storm off when he whipped off his jacket, twirled it over his head and got  _down_ with his bad self, to the wild applause of everyone at the party.

"Oh my god," Kasumi laughed out loud at the horrific display of dexterity, totally counterbalanced by enthusiasm. "He's as bad as Shepard!"

Everyone else pointed at Goldstein, who like everyone else started laughing. "That's exactly what I said!"

By now, Gardner had wandered over from the serving station to see what the fuss was, and he along with the rest of the table enjoyed another laugh. The entire time, Legion's camera eye darted from face to smiling face, recording everything. Kasumi turned to the geth, wanting to include it, at the time genuinely curious what the machine was thinking. Kasumi patted Legion's hand. "This probably doesn't make much sense to you, does it?"

"No," Legion said. "We understand."

The laughter died down. "Wait," Goldstein said. "You actually get this?"

"We were not referring to specific data displayed by Matthews-Zachary. This will require further evaluation to establish its purpose. But we understand the need to disseminate information. You share experiences. We share experiences. In this way, we are similar. The method differs, but the purpose is the same."

It was a lot of words for the lowly organics to digest, but Kasumi had been growing fluent in Legion-speak. "So like us, you tell each other stories."

"We share data. As we indicated, there are differences."

_Well there goes that warm fuzzy,_  Kasumi thought. "Such as?" The humans at the table leaned forward,awaiting the geth's response.

"Your internal storage is chemically based. Age, physical health, external contamination, and biological flaws contribute to the degradation of memory. External physical storage is a necessity. However, you derive physical stimulation when information is shared even if it already exists in memory."

"I guess that's true," Goldstein said. "Guess we're refreshing our emotional cache."

"An interesting analogy," Legion said, "with possible correlation with our second observation. Matthews-Zachary shared information before Goto-Kasumi's arrival, and again after. Your collective biometric responses were measurably stronger with each iteration. There is a measurable, synergistic emotional response when the an event is experienced by a group, as opposed to an individual."

The humans around the table, Kasumi included, blinked at one another as they processed what Legion said. "Well, we do have a saying," she said. "The more the merrier."

"We are aware of this expression. However, this behavior is not consistent. We have observed distinct instances where organics choose with whom they share, where as by design, geth share with all."

"I guess that's true," Goldstein said. "You typically only share with friends or family. People close to you."

Gardner nodded. "And we keep secrets from people you don't want knowing."

"Yes," Legion said. "We do not understand this aspect of organic communication."

"It's kind of like we talked about in our first chat," Kasumi said. "Trusted sources. It's hard for us to know. We have to be selective about who we let into our lives." She looked again at the faces around her, all human, one not. Legion might not have picked up on the implication, but she did. The  _Normandy_ crew could have blown her off, shut her out, started talking about something else when she asked what they were laughing about. But the gang at the table not only shared with the geth, but with her. How long had it been since she let that happen?

She cleared her throat. She needed to change the subject or she'd choke up. "We must confuse the hell out of you, huh?"

"Yes," Legion said, which got a welcome laugh from the table.

"That's okay," Goldstein said. "A lot of the time we confuse ourselves."

"Ain't that the truth?" Gardner flipped a dirty rag over his shoulder. "Been on this tub for almost a year and I don't have a clue what goes on inside your heads."

That got another laugh from everyone except, of course, Legion. The geth's plates shuffled around its face. Kasumi cocked her head. Was it merely processing what was said, or was it something else? It seemed to be caught in a loop. "You okay?"

The geth finally spoke. "We appreciate your efforts to understand us."

Kasumi looked about excitedly. Everyone else at the table obviously heard it, responding with smiles and "Hey, no problems," and "of courses," and "you got its," but this time Kasumi  _was_ choked up. Be Legion a single entity or thousands, they were in the presence a thinking, feeling being. Kasumi leaned back in her seat, With so much darkness in the universe, a moment like this, rare as they were, shone like a star. "You're welcome, Legion."

"Well I hate to break up the group session," Hawthorne said, tapping his omnitool as he looked at Legion. "But break time's over. Gotta get back to work." That resulted in a sad echo from the chorus as they realized that they, too were on a schedule.

Everyone except Kasumi. "The price of popularity," she said. "But this was fun! Shall we do this again tomorrow?"

Goldstein shrugged. "We'll be here."

"Okay then. You all have a homework assignment. Bring something to share with Legion. Something cute, something funny, something that Legion hasn't encountered before. He wants to understand, let's help him. What do you say?"

"Sounds like a plan," Rolston said. "Let's do it."

Patel grinned at Legion as they stood. "By the time we're through with you, you'll wish you didn't understand." She and the others walked as a group with Legion to the lift, already exchanging ideas, leaving Kasumi the last one at the table.

"That was really nice of you," Gardner said, standing behind her.

"Yeah, well," Kasumi said, surprised that she'd forgotten he was there. "I was the new kid before Legion came along. Everyone went out of their way to make me feel at home."

"We're lucky to have you."

"I'm lucky to be here," Kasumi said, and meant it.

"Well," Gardner looked about awkwardly. "Looks like the lunch rush is over. Better start prepping for the next one."

"Be with you in a minute," Kasumi rose and walked to the aft table where she'd abandoned her meal, and her apprentice. What would he have to say about the exchange? She stopped short and turned around. "Oh, Rupert? It really is delicious. The pasta. You really outdid yourself." The cook beamed as he turned back to his pots and pans.

When Kasumi rounded the partition, her pasta was there, but Jacob was not. She stared at the empty chair. Even his tray was gone. The always reliable, religious schedule keeper altered his behavior. Worse still, she missed it completely.

She looked around, as if Jacob might have simply switched seats on her. Had she been so distracted that she missed him bussing his tray and leaving? She fired up her omnitool, tapping into the ship's security system. That they thought they had security at all was adorable.  _Don't get cocky,_  she told herself.  _You're oh-for-two in the last five minutes. What would Keiji think? He always said if anything or anyone was out of place in a job, you walk, no exceptions. When has Jacob ever deviated from his routine? You should know since you watch him all the time, you pervert._

She played back the mess hall's feed. It showed the party at Legion's table, and Jacob, eating by his lonesome the entire time, focused on his datapad. Shortly after Kasumi left him, her stacked his utensils on his still full tray and walked with it to the main lift, all the while nose down in his technical manual.

The ship's tracking system located Jacob in the Armory. She switched the live camera feed there. He stood hunched over one of his workbenches which now supported an impressive looking fabricator stall. While she watched, he shoveled another fork full of food into his mouth from his half-empty tray, still consulting his datapad as he made adjustments to the new fabricator.

She let out her breath. He'd gone back to play with his new gadget. Boys and their toys.

_But you still missed it._

Kasumi sat.  _You've been cooped up in this flying cell block too long. You're losing your edge. Stir crazy. But everything's fine. You've come too far to give up now. Legion, and Shep both need your help. Get a grip. If Jacob shows up for lunch tomorrow, you're back on track. If not, then you'll know the jig is up. Until then, stick to the plan._

She lifted her finger to her omni to switch off the security feed to the Armory when Jacob reached out to scoop up another bite of his lunch.  _Good heavens, just using a fork makes those biceps bulge._ Her free hand moved to pick up her own fork to dig back into lunch.

What harm would it cause to keep him company until they both finished, even if he didn't know it?

 


End file.
